WEST HARTFORD, Conn.-- Top-seeded Boston University and third-seeded Vermont punched their tickets to the 2009 America East Women's Basketball Championship Title Game with semifinal wins on Saturday at University of Hartford's Chase Family Arena. It will be the first time ever these two programs have met with the Rowlands Trophy on the line.
It is the sixth time in the last seven years the Terriers have played for the trophy, while Vermont's last title game performance was in 2001. Boston U. holds a 5-1 advantage over the Catamounts in conference tournament play, including a memorable double overtime semifinal victory at last year's Championship.
In the first semifinal game, the Terriers won another nailbiter, grinding out a 57-53 win over fourth-seeded Binghamton. Senior guard Amarachi Umez-Eronini led all scorers with 23 points, including an 11-for-14 performance at the charity stripe. Senior forward Jesyka Burks-Wiley added 17 points, while junior Aly Hinton posted 11 points and a team-high nine boards. Boston U. was outrebounded by Binghamton, 46-35, led by Bearcat freshman Viive Rebane's 11 boards.
The semifinal was the second straight closely contested tournament game for the Terriers, who needed overtime to dispatch No. 8 Albany on Friday night.
“We’re not fatigued after last night’s game," said Umez-Eronini. "It wasn’t so much physical fatigue as mental. After last night’s game we had a lot of time to think about ourselves, about what can we do to better ourselves and to play within ourselves. .. Play better as a team.”
Rebane put together a solid effort with 11 points and three steals to go along with the rebounds, while playing much of the second half with four personal fouls.
Boston University jumped out to an early lead, 13-3 by the 10:16 mark, however, let Binghamton chip away at that lead and eventually take a 23-22 advantage into the locker rooms. The Bearcats ended the first half on a 11-1 run and took care of the loose balls on the glass, outrebounding the Terriers, 25-16. Eleven of those rebounds were on the offensive end and led to nine second-chance points. Rebane posted nine points and six rebounds by the intermission, while Hinton scored nine of her points in the first 20 minutes.
The second half, though, revolved around the personal fouls on the Bearcats. Binghamton freshman point guard Andrea Holmes was the first of three Bearcats to foul out, doing so with 4:46 remaining with Boston U. holding the 44-41 lead. Senior center Laura Franceski and junior gurad Darryl Peterson followed by the time the game was done. The Terriers did not shoot well from the foul line, only hitting 57.1% of their attempts, but there were plenty of free throw attempts of which to take advantage. Boston U. hit 24 free throws, matching the championship semifinal record, out of 42 attempts, a new semifinal record and tied for the third-most in tournament history.
The twelve-point difference between the number of foul shots Boston U. hit and those that Binghamton hit more than made up the final differential, and helped the Terriers overcome the disadvantage in bench points (12-3) and second-chance points (18-10).
Later in the evening, the No. 3 seed knocked off the No. 2 seed in the semifinals, 66-56, to advance to the title tilt for the second straight year. Boston University did so last year by toppling Vermont in double overtime. Vermont is also the third team to defeat Hartford on its homecourt this season after the Hawks accumulated 34 straight wins at Chase Arena.
The first half between the Catamounts and the Hawks was a back-and-forth affair with seven tied scores and seven lead changes. Right before the halftime buzzer sounded, Hartford sophomore Mary Silvia drained a three-pointer off a feed from junior Diana Delva to push the Hawks ahead, 32-29, and send the crowd of 1,708 into a frenzy.
Hartford's lead extended only as high as five points with 15 minutes remaining before Vermont began their big push. A three-pointer by Catamount junior guard Courtnay Pilypaitis, who finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds, gave Vermont a one-point lead at 12:46, a lead it would not relinquish for the rest of the game. The Catamounts went on an 18-4 run, building a double-digit lead, and beating the Hawks for the first time in three tries this season.
"Last year we were in this kind of a tight game in the semifinals, and we lost," said Pilypaitis after the game. "I think we’ve just gone through so much and we’ve learned everytime and we just really knew how to handle it now. We had that composure by every single person on the floor and our bench was phenomenal."
In addition to her scoring and rebounding, Pilypaitis also added six assists and three steals. The first-team all-conference guard hit two of three treys and went 11-for-11 from the free-throw line.
Seniors Katie Kelley and MaryLynne Schaefer led the Hawks with 14 and 12 points, respectively. Delva added 12 points of her own and finished with seven rebounds, six of them offensive. The Hawks were plagued by their 14 turnovers, however, which the Catamounts were quick to capitalize on, scoring 20 of their points off of them.
Sunday evening's Final will tip-off at 6 p.m. at Chase Arena and will be televised live on New England Sports Network. The broadcast will also be streamed live on the America East Zone at www.AmericaEast.com. Tonight's second semifinal between Vermont and Hartford can also be viewed on NESN Sunday at 12:30 p.m., prior to the title game.