There’s a reason why the University of Scranton women’s basketball team why they one of the top teams country.

And it was on full display Saturday in the Landmark conference Championship game.

The Lady Royals used a suffocating defense against Elizabethtown and a strong second half to capture their 11th straight

championship and punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament.

Kaci Kranson, Scranton Senior(Holy Cross), “ It’s just exciting to be a part of this team with such tremendous girls. We always say like, we’re a resilient team. So, you know, going into this landmark, season, we have E-Town, Catholic, Susquehanna, all great teams, great coaches, great players. “

Sophia Talutto, Scranton Freshman(Dunmore), “I feel like just growing up in this area, I’ve always seen, past players do that and it was just like a really cool thing to be a part of now. And just, you know, being a part of the team is it’s just a really good feeling. “

Ben O’Brien, Scranton Coach, “ You know we had a special season; I think a season that we haven’t seen a lot in the Landmark Conference before. So, I’m hopeful that it was more that we just happened to have a really good team this year. And, we’re hoping that continues in the tournament. “

Monday afternoon the Lady Royals found out as expected they will host the first round as the #4

seed and play Framingham the opening round.

Kaeli Romanowski, Scranton Senior(Western Wayne), “ I think this year we have a lot of a lot of experience on the team. We were all pretty much there except for the freshman last year to experience that heartbreak. And that’s one thing that you never forget.

You don’t forget the thought of somebody else cutting down your own nets on your home court. So that’s just kind of been our motivation this year. We want to get back to the elite eight and get hopefully through to the Final four and then be the national championship. “

The other team that punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament, Susquehanna University. The RiverHawks win the Landmark title for the first time since 2022, and they’ll head back to the tournament.

Susquehanna used a 19-2 second half run to out duel Wilkes.

Dallas product Mikey Cumbo hit some big throws down the stretch to secure the 76-72 win.

Mikey Cumbo, Susquehanna sophomore(Dallas), “It’s amazing. Like, we’re the sixth seed. We’re not supposed to be here at all. It’s just it’s surreal, it is amazing. This group of guys, like we stuck together through the ups and downs, all this, you know, this is we love each other. So, we just kept that power. We’re here. We are champions. “

Frank Marcinek, Susquehanna Coach, “We’ve never we’ve never back in like we did. We’ve never been a sixth seed. The first MAC championship we won, we came in as a four seed, and we won but not as a sixth deed. “

The Riverhawks will take on the University of Redlands from California at Hood college in the opening round. They feel after shocking their conference they might shock the nation.

Marcinek, “We feel like we have a championship culture and championship habits.

And what that’s what we relied upon today. “

Both teams will start their games on Friday.