SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The University of Scranton Royals used a dominant first-quarter surge Friday to stay unbeaten and move one win away from the NCAA Division III women\u2019s basketball Final Four, defeating Bates 76-59 in the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
Scranton, the undefeated and No. 2 nationally ranked team, opened the game with a 12-0 first-quarter run and never let No. 12 Bates seriously threaten after building a 27-8 lead by the end of the opening period.<\/p>\n
Bates (26-4) closed a record-breaking season that included a second NESCAC title, a fourth trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 and the most wins in program history.<\/p>\n
Senior captain Elsa Daulerio, a Harpswell, Maine, native, led Bates with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting in the final game of her career. Daulerio finished with 1,375 career points, the sixth-most in program history. Fellow seniors Sophie Spolter, from Blacklick, Ohio, and co-captain Ava James, from Bethesda, Maryland, added 16 and 10 points, respectively. Junior Mya Hicks of Ann Arbor, Michigan, also scored 10 points and went 3 of 4 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
Rebounding proved decisive. Scranton (30-0) out-rebounded Bates 43-28, leading to a 16-3 advantage in second-chance points. The Royals also controlled the paint, outscoring Bates 40-12 inside.<\/p>\n
Katie Gorski led all players with 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting, along with two blocked shots and two steals. Kaci Kranson posted a double-double with 17 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Meghan Lamanna added 13 points, six rebounds and three assists, and Elizabeth Bennett scored 10 points off the bench.<\/p>\n
Scranton scored the first four points on free throws before Daulerio hit a jumper to make it 4-2 with 7:43 left in the first quarter. The Royals then extended the lead with a 14-0 run, going up 16-2 on Jenna Sloan free throws with 5:08 remaining.<\/p>\n
Bates outscored Scranton 51-49 over the final three quarters, but the closest the Bobcats got after the first quarter was within 15 points on a Daulerio jumper with 5:33 left in the third. Scranton led by as many as 27 points before Bates ended the game on a 10-0 run.<\/p>\n
Statistically, the teams were otherwise similar. Bates shot .385 from the floor to Scranton\u2019s .438 and hit 6 of 17 from 3-point range compared with Scranton\u2019s 5 of 16. Turnovers were nearly even, with Bates committing 11 to Scranton\u2019s 10. Scranton scored 16 points off turnovers, while Bates scored 15. Bates went 13 of 16 at the free-throw line, and Scranton finished 15 of 19.<\/p>\n
Scranton will play No. 20 Concordia-Moorhead in the Elite Eight on Saturday at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The University of Scranton Royals used a dominant first-quarter surge Friday to stay unbeaten and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-138028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}