From NYU Athletics
Kaitlyn Read's steal with less than one second remaining sealed a 51-50 victory for the New York University women's basketball team over Virginia Wesleyan College on Friday night, March 6, at the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center in Manhattan.
The win moves the Violets on to the second round of the 2015 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship. They will host Amherst College at Coles on Saturday, March 7, for a scheduled 5:00 pm tipoff.
NYU (22-4) and Virginia Wesleyan (19-10) were in a back-and-forth, grind-it-out battle all night long, as the two squads traded the lead 13 times and were tied another 10 times. In addition, the Violets and Marlins were virtually even on the boards and underneath the basket offensively. NYU held the advantage in both rebounds (38-37) and points in the paint (30-26).
"This was not a pretty game. But, you're talking about a group of people who hadn't won an NCAA game yet, and we were trying to figure out how to do that," said NYU Head Coach Lauren Hall-Gregory. "And then at the end what kicked in was that we'd won games before, whether they were NCAA games or not. We know how to win games. You get a stop, you get a rebound and hit your free throws down the stretch, which we were able to do."
No one player stood out for either team, as each squad had three players in double figures, with the game-high-tying 12 points coming from Megan Dawe for the Violets and Symonne Newsome of VWC. In addition, neither team scored a point after the 1:10 mark following Dawe's layup courtesy of Melissa Peng.
In addition to Read's steal in the waning milliseconds of the contest, Riley Wurtz made another huge play for the Violets in order to come away with the eventual one-point victory. As the Marlins led 48-44 -- their largest lead of the contest -- with 3:26 remaining, Wurtz found herself open for the spot-up three-pointer in the far-right corner of the court and nailed the trey to bring NYU within one at 48-47.
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Dawe was 6-of-7 (85.7 percent) from the field. The junior center added a team-high-tying seven rebounds and a steal in 26 minutes.
- Read also finished with seven rebounds and chipped in 11 points and three assists. The sophomore guard was 5-of-6 from the free-throw line. Her game-clinching steal was one of a game-best tying five overall.
- Peng played a game-high 37 minutes and finished with 10 points, including 6-for-6 from the line, and a game-best five assists.
- Emily Rowe also pulled down seven rebounds. Wurtz finished with five points and three rebounds.