Boxscore PHILADELPHIA – Tournament Most Valuable Player Janae Weldon finished with a career-high 30 points to lead the Goldey-Beacom College women's basketball team to the school's first conference championship with a stunning 66-54 upset win over No. 15 Holy Family University Tigers in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference final.
With the win, the Lightning (18-11) earned the school's first berth in the NCAA East Regional Tournament and will await their seed on Selection Sunday at 9:30 p.m. GBC's NCAA Tournament resume includes two road wins over the No. 1 team in the East Region (Holy Family), two wins (one on the road) over the No. 7 team (USciences) and one win over the No. 10 team (Bloomfield). Goldey-Beacom ended HFU's NCAA Division II record 110-game regular season conference winning streak and 71-game home winning streak at the Campus Center when the Lightning sent shockwaves through the conference with a 64-51 victory the last time these two teams met on Jan. 13. The Tigers bounced back and had run off 13 straight wins, including seven at home, but once again hit a brick wall on their home floor against GBC, the tournament No. 3 seed out of the South. With this historic victory, the Lightning became the first CACC team to defeat Holy Family twice in one season.
Holy Family, ranked 15th in the most recent USA Today/ESPN Division II National Top-25 Coaches' Poll and No. 1 in the region, fell to 23-4 overall. Despite a 37-1 regular season conference record the past two seasons, HFU has come up short in the Finals twice in a row now. The Tigers will await their seeding on Sunday as an at-large bid.
Weldon was 9-of-16 from the field (5-of-12 from three-point range) and 7-of-10 at the foul line as she had arguably the best game of her four-year Lightning career when it mattered most. Redshirt-junior guard Jacinda Jones (five points, five rebounds, four assists in the Finals) and sophomore forward Devonne Richardson (10 points, season-high 16 rebounds) joined Weldon on the All-Tournament Team. GBC also got a big lift off the bench from sophomore forward Irene Hudson (eight points, five rebounds) and redshirt-sophomore Ashley Rosario (eight points, two rebounds, one assist). Senior Arielle Alford (11 rebounds, two assists, one block) and sophomore Akilah Sewell (five points, six rebounds, one block) held First Team All-CACC selectee and Holy Family's all-time leading scorer Catherine Carr to just nine points (seven below her average) on 3-of-14 shooting from the field. Collectively, the Lightning defense held Holy Family to 16-of-65 shooting (24.6-percent) from the field, including a miserable 6-of-35 (17-percent) in the second half where the Tigers were 0-of-13 from long-range.
In the Lightning's two wins over HFU this year, they held the highest-scoring team in the conference to 52.5 points per-game (over 25 points less than their average), .263 shooting from the field (HFU normally shoots at a .432 clip) and .192 shooting from long-range, when they lead the league with a .362 three-point FG percentage. The Tigers were even coming off a blowout, 82-63 semifinal win over Caldwell during which they shot 45-percent from the field and 47-percent (8-of-17) from behind-the-arc.
One stark difference between the last meeting and this one was the Lightning turned an eight-rebound deficit (46-38) in the last game into a 12-rebound advantage (49-37), which led to GBC outscoring HFU 20-14 in the paint and 14-8 in second-chance points.
It was raining threes for a very frenetic first five minutes of the game as the first seven field-goals of the game were all from downtown. Weldon and Richardson each knocked down a pair of treys in what were all of the Lightning's first four attempts from the field, and helped them to grab an early 12-9 lead.
The two teams combined to make 11 from behind-the-arc (GBC 6, HFU 5) in a first-half that featured 10 lead changes and eight ties. Reserve guard Molly Hanlon (two points, two rebounds), in for the injured Tigers' starting point guard Lauren Peters (three points, two assists, six minutes played), made a layup with 13 ticks left to put the hosts in front, 30-28 at intermission.
Nearly two minutes went by in the second half before Weldon's jumper sent the game to its ninth tie at 30-all. The Tigers responded with four consecutive points, including a pair of free-throws by Lindsey Tennett to go up 34-30.
Trailing 36-32 with 15:18 left to play, the Lightning went on a game-defining 18-3 surge over the next 6:26 to take a 50-39 lead just past the nine-minute mark. Jones started things off with a three-pointer off an assist from Richardson. Rosario put in two fast-break layups and Weldon converted an and-one three-point play, knocked down a three, and hit a pair of free-throws during the run. Hudson capped it off with a jumper at 8:52.
The Lightning did let a 52-41 lead dwindle down to three, 55-52 with 3:20 left to play, but two consecutive jumpers by Weldon and a pair of free-throws by Rosario put the game out of reach, 61-52 with 1:47 showing on the clock. The second of Weldon's two jumpers was the product of a second-chance opportunity created by a big offensive rebound by Alford.
GBC was just 6-of-9 down the stretch, but it was no matter because in the final 3:20 of the game, HFU managed just an Erin Mann layup with 12 seconds left in regulation, and the Lightning came out victorious, 66-54.
Fans can watch the NCAA Division II Tournament Selection Show at 9:30 by visiting NCAA.com.
