Washington U. 78, Emmanuel 62

DANBURY , Conn. — Held scoreless for the first 15 minutes, Bears' senior Tasha Rodgers showed why she will be a D3hoops.com First Team All-American as she scored 24 points over the next 25 minutes to carry the Bears to a 78-62 win over Emmanuel in the NCAA Tournament national semifinals Friday night. The Bears will play the winner of the second semifinal between Messiah and Ohio Wesleyan in Saturday night's national championship game. 

The Saints led throughout the first 15 and a half minutes as the Bears struggled to contain Emmanuel's quick, athletic guards. Trailing 27-25 with 4:31 left, though, Rodgers finally cranked it up. She scored seven points to key a 15-5 half-ending run that sent Washington U. into the locker room with a 40-32 lead. Robin Lahargoue tallied six points over that same stretch as the Bears featured a balanced attack. Sara Ettner had nine first-half points, Rodgers had seven and Lahargoue and Jennifer Rudis scored six each. 

The run continued to open the second stanza as Rodgers converted a pair of three-point plays to key an 8-0 run that pushed the margin to 48-32 with 16:59 left. Emmanuel responded with a run of their own, this time 8-2, to cut the margin to 50-40 with 14:10 left. The Bears offense was steamrolling at that point, though, as a 9-0 answer pushed the lead back to 59-40 with 12:05 left and the Saints would get no closer than 15 the rest of the way. 

Emmanuel got the quick start as they jumped to a 10-2 lead on a pair of long back-to-back three-pointers by Marcy Tillman. WU closed to 12-9 with a 7-2 burst, but the lead quickly jumped back to seven at 16-9. WU finally began to chip away as Ettner, Lahargoue, Meg Sullivan and Lindsey Merrill each hit three-point shots to set the Bears up for the half-ending run. 

Rodgers finished with a game-high 24 points and added a game-high five steals. Lahargoue tallied a career-high 20 with five rebounds and Ettner had 13 points and a game-high eight assists. Rudis had six points and eight rebounds and Sullivan had seven points. Tillman led the Saints with 23 points and Brianne Bognanno had 18. Washington U. shot 47% for the game, while holding Emmanuel to 42% and just 37% in the second half. 

The win stretches WU's NCAA Division III Tournament-record winning streak to 19 games and ups the Bears record on the season to 27-2. Washington U. is looking to become just the second team in NCAA women's basketball history to win four consecutive national titles. Only Division II North Dakota State has accomplished the feat, winning four in a row from 1993-96.

Messiah 70, Ohio Wesleyan 57

DANBURY , Conn. — Messiah jumped to an early lead, withstood an Ohio Wesleyan comeback and then kept the Bishops at arm's length in the second half in taking a 70-57 decision in an NCAA Division III semifinal game on Friday at Western Connecticut State. The Battling Bishops (25-7) will play Emmanuel (28-3) in the consolation game at 6 p.m. on Saturday. 

Emmanuel (28-3) lost to 3-time defending national champion Washington U. in the evening's first semifinal contest. The national championship game will tip off at 8 p.m. on Saturday. 

Ohio Wesleyan started the game cold, missing its first eight shots from the field, but the Bishop defense kept the team in the game, allowing Messiah only eight points in the first five minutes before senior guard Leslie Welsh hit a jumper that put Ohio Wesleyan on the scoreboard. Messiah used its size advantage to build its lead late in the half, getting three baskets from Amy Hitz and another by Christina Vouriotis on offensive rebounds. 

The Falcons' biggest lead was 11 points on three different occasions, and when Vouriotis scored with :54 left in the half, Messiah still led 32-22. Then the Bishops caught fire. Junior guard Elizabeth Edinger assisted a basket by senior post Anissa Haynes, then stole the ball and scored to bring the Bishops to within 32-26 with 20 seconds left. Welsh then picked up a loose ball and fed junior guard Michelle Wolfe for a three-pointer that made it 32-29 with :10 left. 

The Bishops weren't done. Ohio Wesleyan forced another loose ball, which resulted in a held ball with :01 remaining and Messiah inbounding the ball underneath the Ohio Wesleyan basket. Haynes tipped the inbounds pass, but the ball went right to Hitz, who laid it in for a momentum-seizing bucket at the buzzer. 

Messiah took charge right at the beginning of the second half, scoring on its first 3 possessions while Ohio Wesleyan missed a shot on its first possession and then turned the ball over on its next 2. The Bishops kept the game within reach and whittled the deficit to 6 points when Wolfe drilled a 3-pointer and senior wing Jessica Viertlboeck added a basket to bring Ohio Wesleyan to within 58-52 with 7:53 left in regulation time. Messiah answered with an Amy Murray basket but would only score once more from the field during the remainder of the game. 

During one stretch, Ohio Wesleyan forced 6 missed shots in a row by the Falcons, but the Bishops could not take advantage of the Messiah drought and were unable to close the gap any further. "We didn't seem to get into the flow of our game tonight," said Bishop head coach Nan Carney-DeBord. "We were forcing turnovers but not capitalizing on them. We've been behind at the half before and thought we would make a run in the first 5 minutes (of the second half), but it just wasn't our best 5 minutes. When we did get our defensive possessions, we didn't convert." 

"I don't think it was running out of gas," said junior post Katy Sturtz. We just didn't give it our all tonight, but I'm not going to say we played bad. Our style of play tonight was totally different than what we played before." 

Sturtz led the Bishops with 16 points, while Welsh and Wolfe finished with 10 points apiece. Wolfe grabbed a team-high 9 rebounds and Haynes led the Bishops with 3 assists. Viertlboeck finished with 8 points and 3 rebounds.

"We've got to have Jess and Katy scoring and rebounding for us to beat a good team," Carney-DeBord said. "Messiah played with a tremendous amount of heart and desire."