The Guru Daily Report: D2-Chestnut Hill Finishes 1st in CACC South; Rider Wins; Temple Loses; Toledo Clinches Outright MAC Crown

By Mel Greenberg @womhoops

This covers everything not part of conference breakout blogs

We start with the locals and in Division 2 in a first place showdown after slipping back to a tie heading into the last day of the season, on Saturday, on the road, Lauren Crim nailed a three-point shot with five seconds remaining to  give Chestnut Hill College a 63-60 win over perennial Central Collegiate Athletic Conference (CACC) South Division USciences at the Bobby Morgan Arena in Southwest Philadelphia.

It’s the first-ever South Division Title for the Griffiths (24-4, 16-2 CACC) in a year they dominated heading into the first round of the conference tournament Tuesday night.

The Devils finished second at 20-4 overall and 15-3.

It’s most CACC wins in any season by any women’s program at Chestnut Hill and only the second time, the other in 2017-18 that the Griffiths have swept USciences for the season coming as the end coming for the Devils athletic department with the school soon to merge with Division I Saint Joseph’s University.

In having the No. 1 seed, the Griffiths will open play Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. in Sorgenti Arena hosting Caldwell.

The winning shot was Crim’s sixth from deep in the contest on the way to scoring 20 points, shooting 7-for-10 overall, 6-for-7 from deep. Emily Chmiel had her 11th double double with 21 points and 10 rebounds, tying a program season record, while Cassie Sebold dealt six assists to go with her eight points. Bri Hewlett grabbed nine rebounds, while Lindsey Lane grabbed seven alongside her six points.

USciences had three chances to break from a tie in the last minute and then Kaitlyn Carter blocked Jess Huber’s shot after she had already scored 14 points.

The Griffiths called time, then brought the ball up court and ran the clock to 10 seconds before taking a second timeout. A third timeout was called to enable the ball to be inbounded along the baseline.

The ball them got to Crim for the game winner, though the Devils got a shot off to attempt a tie but it was off the mark.

There were 13 lead changes and five ties.

The semifinals and finals will be held March 5 and 6 with the winner getting an automatic bid to the NCAA Dvision II tournament.

Other games Tuesday night will have Jefferson meet Felician, USciences meet Domincan among the locals in the four contests.

Rider Beats St. Peter’s: Finishing at home on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Rider rallied for a 57-50 win over St. Peter’s at a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) game in the Boncs’ Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J.

“Great win on our home floor,” said Rider coach Lynn Milligan. “The kids fed off the energy, no doubt about that.

“The tips and steals and deflections we were getting today, we were looking down the floor. We finished, Nay did a really great job finishing, and her teammates did a great job finding her. We did a really good defense on (Kendrea Williams), which helped a lot.

Rider had a season-high 11 blocks in the contest, while the Broncs held Williams to four points.

Lenaejha Evans had 16 points, Jessika Schiffer scored 15, and Makayla Firebaugh scored 11.

Finishing on the road, Rider goes to league-leader Fairfield on Thursday and on to Quinnipiac in Hamden, Conn.

Temple Falls to Tulane: The Owls fell to the Green Wave, which continued its recent surge through the American Athletic Conference, on Saturday winning 71-56 on Senior Day in Philadelphia at McGonigle Hall.

The game was the farewell local appearance for all-time scorer Mia Davis with Temple (12-13, 7-7 AAC), which, despite the loss to Tulane (20-7, 11-4), still has a chance for a bye in the conference tourney in two weeks in Fort Worth, Texas, at Dickey’s Arena.

“We’ve been in control of our destiny and we’ve been in every game but we’re still trying to get over the loss last Saturday here to UCF,” said Temple coach Tonya Cardoza. “We haven’t played that basketball so bad in a long while.”

Davis had a game-high 25 points and 11 rebounds, while Emani Mayo, another departing senior, had 10 points and five rebounds.

Temple finishes up Monday and Wednesday playing SMU in Texas, one a makeup game that was postponed from orginally scheduled up here.

Looking Ahead: Drexel continues to hone in on the top seed in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tourney, which will be held here at the Dragons’ Daskalakis Athletic Center in two weeks.

Both coach Amy Mallon’s squad and Delaware are holding senior days Sunday before finishing on the road next weekend.

Drexel hosts Elon, a team that nearly upset Delaware, Friday, at 2 p.m. Sunday, while the Blue Hens host William & Mary.

The Dragons need to win two of their final three to clinch the top seed.

This year the tables will be reversed going into the tournament from a year ago when Delaware won the regular season, sweeping the Dragons, before Drexel came back at Elon to win the automatic bid and second conference crown. So far Drexel has executed a sweep of the Blue Hens.

Nationally Noted: Toledo Wins Regular Season MAC: The Rockets rocked Eastern Michigan on the road 75-51 in Ypsilanti to claim the regular season crown of the Mid-American Conference. 

Quinesha Lockett had 16 points for Toledo (23-4, 17-1 MAC).

And that’s the daily blog for Sunday AMs. The Guru will again offer multi-blogs for Monday covering more conference setups coming later Sunday plus rounding up the CAA games of Drexel and Delaware, with Villanova part of what will be the Big East tournament setup blog.