SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – Senior
Grace Ardito led five Garnet Chargers in double figures with a game-high 18 points to earn Tournament Most Outstanding Performer honors as the top-seeded Union College women's basketball team captured its first Liberty League championship since 2004 with a wire-to-wire 81-70 victory over second-seeded Rochester Institute of Technology on Sunday afternoon at a packed Viniar Athletic Center.
The win is Union's 10th straight victory and propels the Garnet Chargers into the NCAA Tournament for the second time in program history. Moving to 22-5 on the season, the team is now tied for second on the school single-season wins list as well.
"This team worked really hard for this," said fifth-year head coach
Katie Marcella. "We have worked through a lot of adversity all season long, and these players earned the result that they got today. Our senior class took the recruiting message that was sent four years ago and really drove that home, and now we've accomplished what we've been talking about for four years."
Ardito followed up Friday's 28-point semifinal effort with an efficient 6-of-11 shooting day to earn MOP honors, adding five rebounds, five assists and two steals to her ledger while playing all 40 minutes on Sunday. The honor is a fitting acknowledgment for the senior, who walked onto the basketball team as a first-year and has averaged a career-best 10.1 points per game so far this season.
"It's been incredible to see what Grace has been able to accomplish over four years," said Marcella. "She has been our most consistent and disciplined player all season. She definitely has not received the credit that she's deserved all year long, but we wouldn't be where we are without her."
Ardito is one piece of a vitally important senior class that made its presence felt on Sunday, combining for 60 points, 18 rebounds and 13 assists. Classmate
Kate Peek also didn't see the bench all afternoon and scored 15 points thanks to 5-of-9 shooting from long range, while fellow seniors
Grace Ceseretti and
Jelena Perovic both reached double figures as well. Ceseretti netted 14 points with six boards and five assists, and Perovic chipped in 13 points to move into seventh place on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,091 points.
In addition, junior
Morgan Schultz gave all five Union starters at least 10 points with a 11-point, nine-rebound effort, and sophomore
Olivia Cunningham added eight points and nine boards off the bench. With her nine rebounds, Cunningham moved into second place on the school single-season list with 277 caroms this season, just four away from tying the program record set in 2000-01.
Peek got the crowd going early with a pair of three-pointers and Union never trailed after starting the afternoon on an 8-2 run. All day long, the home team fed off the energy from the packed Viniar crowd.
"The crowd today was awesome," Marcella added. "We went on some big runs and the crowd was electric, it was such an amazing atmosphere. Anytime that we or other teams have a home playoff game, our student-athletes come out in support and it's an amazing feeling that you don't get at every school. The camaraderie that our students have with their peers is special and we felt that today."
Union used an 8-3 run late in the first quarter to open up a 24-15 lead, hitting 5-of-7 shots from distance in the opening period and 9-of-17 shots overall to keep RIT playing from behind all afternoon. The Garnet Chargers followed up by outscoring the Tigers 15-10 in the second stanza to take a 39-27 lead into halftime. Union shot 16-of-33 (48.4 percent) from the field in the opening 20 minutes while limiting RIT to 11-of-35 (31.4 percent) shooting.
The home team hit seven of its first 13 shots in the third quarter to open up the game's largest lead at 58-38 with 2:18 on the clock, but RIT closed on a 9-2 stint to get back within 13 (60-47) after three periods. The Tigers did not go away and further cut into the Garnet Charger lead in the fourth, getting the deficit to as little as four at 72-68 with 1:56 remaining. But Cunningham hit a huge layup with the shot clock winding down to bump the lead back to six and Union clinched the conference title with seven free throws in the final 50 seconds.
Union finished the day shooting 49.2 percent (30 of 61) from the field and limited RIT to just a 38.6 percent (27 of 70) success rate from the field. The Garnet Chargers electrified the crowd by hitting 10 of 19 three-pointers on the day and also finished with 15 fast-break points.
Union will learn its destination for the first round of the NCAA Tournament via the NCAA Division III selection show tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. on
NCAA.com.
