Fairfield and Quinnipiac will meet once again in the MAAC women’s basketball tournament championship game Monday night in Atlantic City, N.J.
Quinnipiac, the top seed, prevailed in a 63-62 overtime victory over Iona Sunday afternoon. Then second-seeded Fairfield, the two-time defending tournament champion, defeated Merrimack, 65-48, later in the second semifinal game.
The MAAC rivals – which split games during the regular season – will play Monday at 6 p.m. in the final at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall for an automatic NCAA Tournament berth.
Fairfield (27-4, 19-1) beat Quinnipiac last year for the MAAC championship, 76-53, and won the title two years ago with a victory over Niagara.
On Sunday, Karson Martin had 19 points and five assists for Quinnipiac (26-5, 19-1 in the MAAC) and Ella Ryan added 15 points while Ella O’Donnell had 10 rebounds.
“Survive and advance – that was a perfect example of it,” Quinnipiac coach Trish Fabbri said. “It was a seesaw battle the entire way. I think there were 18 lead changes.
“Their two bigs went to town on us from the perimeter of all places – they were hard to guard, then we built a little lead at halftime and they came right out and answered it.”
Iona was led by Zoey Ward’s 23 points and 10 rebounds and she was 4 for 7 from the 3-point line while Naomi Barnwell had 20 points and nine rebounds (and went 3-for-6 from 3).
Quinnipiac led 30-24 at halftime but Iona cut the lead to 45-44 by the end of the third quarter. With two minutes left in the game, Isabellah Middleton hit a layup to give Iona a 57-55 lead but Quinnipiac’s Ryan hit a jumper with 1:03 left to tie the score at 57. In overtime, Anna Foley’s jumper with 27 seconds left gave the Bobcats a 63-62 lead and Iona missed a layup with four seconds left; Quinnipiac got the rebound and the game was over.
Quinnipiac had beaten Iona 80-54 on Jan. 1 but Barnwell did not play in that game. Iona (20-12) was on a six-game win streak coming into the semifinal.
“It was the holidays, we had them at home, it was early and we only saw them once,” Fabbri said of the first game. “It’s the time of year – let the madness begin.”
Fabbri was impressed that Quinnipiac was able to maintain its success after losing its starting point guard Paige Girardi to an ACL tear on Feb. 21 against Sacred Heart.
“This team has been awesome with 26 wins – losing Paige – the basketball gods were like, ‘OK, we’re going to help you with this one today,’” Fabbri said. “We did make some big shots (Sunday).
“To kind of figure that out down the stretch – we’ve played great team basketball all year, great defense, shared the ball. This group is determined. They earned the right to get back to the game (Monday).”
In the second semifinal game, Jillian Huerter led Fairfield with 19 points, a block and three steals and Meghan Anderson had 18 points, nine rebounds, two blocks and three steals.
That’s what March is all about,” Fairfield coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said in a press release. “That is a really good Merrimack team. They are scrappy and play incredibly hard. We knew it was going to be a really tough, physical, and aggressive game and I though we answered the bell. We were poised when we needed to be in moments and we got stops when we needed to.”
During the regular season, Quinnipiac defeated Fairfield in Fairfield, 72-58 on Jan. 29 but the Stags beat Quinnipiac on Feb. 14 in Hamden, 75-63.
“They shoot 3s, we got to run them off the line,” Fabbri said of Fairfield. “Keep them in check and they’ve got to worry about defending us.”