March 7, 2013
Final Stats | Photo Gallery 
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- On a wild opening night of the Patriot League women's basketball tournament that saw the Nos. 1 and 3 seeds lose at home, Navy, the No. 2 seed, survived and advanced past No. 7 Lafayette, 59-55 in overtime, Thursday night at Alumni Hall in Annapolis.
Navy will play host to Bucknell Monday night at 7 p.m. in a semifinal round game. Tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for youths and will be on sale Friday through the Navy Ticket Office by calling 1-800-US4-NAVY or by visiting NavySports.com and clocking on the TICKETS link in the masthead of the home page. The sixth-seeded Bison advanced to the semifinal round by posting a 46-43 victory over No. 3 American in Washington, D.C.
The other half of the bracket saw Army, which shared the Patriot League regular season title with Navy but earned the No. 1 seed by having defeated the Mids twice during the regular season, lose at home to No. 8 Colgate 48-40. It was just the second time the No. 8 seed has defeated the No. 1 seed in league tournament history. The Raiders will play Monday at No. 4 Holy Cross in the other semifinal. The Crusaders advanced to Monday night by recording a 64-59 victory over No. 5 Lehigh.
With the results of tonight's games, Navy is the lone team to have won at least one game in the Patriot League Tournament in each of the last five seasons. This is after the Mids had won a quarterfinal round game just seven times in its first 17 seasons in the league.
"Lafayette was fantastic tonight," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "Their effort, their game plan, they were so hard to defend inside; I thought they were so good tonight. It was one of those game where we couldn't say `we weren't playing well.' No, it was just Lafayette was playing well."
The first 40 minutes of the game in Alumni Hall was a see-saw affair that included 23 lead changes, 13 of which came in the second half. Both teams built small cushions in the first half -- Navy held leads of five points (5-0) and four points (24-20) and Lafayette took a 20-15 lead -- before the squads went into the locker rooms tied at 29-29.
The entire second half saw the lead sway back-and forth between the teams, with the largest advantages being three points for Lafayette (32-29, 41-38) and just two points for Navy (38-36).
The Mids took what would prove to be their final lead of regulation when a jumper from Jade Geif (Jr., Lakeville, Minn.) gave Navy a 46-45 lead with 2:53 left on the clock. That advantage lasted all of 30 seconds as Jamie O'Hare promptly drilled a three-point shot to give Lafayette a 48-46 lead. Navy had two chances to score on its next possession, but came away empty. Lafayette's Maddie Peabody then drove the lane, but turned the ball over to the Mids with 55 seconds left when she was whistled for a charging foul.
Navy tossed the ball inside to Geif, who was fouled while attempting a shot with 32 seconds showing on the clock. She calmly sank both attempts from the line to knot the score at 48-48.
Lafayette held for one shot, but Peabody's three-point attempt from the baseline was long. Navy's Erin Meador (So., Clifton, Va.) dove to the floor to first grab the loose ball and then call timeout with 1.3 seconds left to play. A 25-foot shot at the buzzer from Alix Membreno (Jr., Loxahatchee, Fla.) fell short and wide to send the game into overtime.
"How poetic that Jade Geif hits those two free throws to send the game into overtime," said Pemper. "I'm so happy for her."
"Lafayette was playing great," said Geif, "so we had to come out and play just as hard. We've been in this position before and we talked about how we haven't had the mentality of winning. We just really wanted to come and turn it up a notch. We had key points from everyone at key times."
Membreno started the overtime session by stealing the ball from Kristan Liddle and going three-quarters of the court to give the Mids a 50-48 lead.
"You want to come out strong the start a game, start a half, start a new clock," said Membreno.
Lafayette's Danielle Fiacco missed a shot on the Lafayette end of the court, with Audrey Bauer (Jr., Lake Zurich, Ill.) there for the defensive carom. Geif would miss a jumper on the Navy end, with Fiacco snaring the ball. However, Membreno snuck around the back of Fiacco and grabbed the ball as well. A jump ball was called and the possession arrow pointed in the direction of Navy. With a second chance, Chloe Stapleton (So., Cary, N.C.) drilled a three-point field goal to give Navy a 53-48 advantage. Neither team scored the next time each had possession, then Membreno grabbed another defensive carom for the Mids. She would proceed to hit a jumper that pushed the Navy lead out to 55-48 with just over two minutes left to play.
Lafayette answered immediately as Madeline Fahan nailed a three-point shot to slice the seven-point lead down to four with 1:45 remaining. Navy gained two of those three points back 20 seconds later as a Kara Pollinger (Jr., Fort Gay, W.Va.) jumper made the score 57-51 in favor of the Mids with 1:21 left to play. Back came the Leopards as Emily Homan grabbed an offensive carom and then scored to make it a four-point game with 1:01 left on the clock.
Navy took as much time off of the shot clock as it could before Geif sank another jumper with 31 seconds left to play to make it a 59-53 game. The Leopards were not finished, however, as Fahan hit another jumper with 19.2 seconds remaining to cut the lead down to 59-55. That immediately led to a Lafayette timeout. Navy soon inbounded the ball and played keep away with it until Meador was fouled with four seconds left on the clock. She missed the first attempt, but that allowed the clock to start running immediately. Lafayette could manage just a long three-point shot as the buzzer sounded.
As befitting a tight game, all of the statistics between the teams were fairly even. Navy held a 39-37 lead on the glass and forced Lafayette into 15 turnovers while committing 13 of its own. Navy shot 39.3 percent from the floor and made 5 of 18 (27.8%) three-point attempts, while Lafayette made 38.6 percent of its shots and was 7 of 18 (38.9%) from three-point land. Navy also was 6 of 10 from the foul line with the Leopards ending the game after having made 4 of their 7 attempts from the charity stripe.
Geif, the two-time most valuable player of the Patriot League Tournament and who was edged by Army's Kelsey Minato for the 2013 Patriot League Player-of-the-Year Award in a tiebreaker, scored 20 points against the Leopards. Membreno also had a productive night as she notched a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds to go along with a game-high six assists. Joining Geif and Membreno in double figures was Bauer, who hit a trio of three-point field goals to tally 11 points.
"You can't feel any better than this," said Membreno. "Lafayette played so well. They really came at us hard. Their game plan was awesome. For us to overcome adversity, I don't think we were playing at that well in the first half and early in the second half. To come back and hit some shots at key times was so vital. Everyone contributed tonight. It wasn't a one-person show. Everybody chipped in points at key times."
"Jade was incredible," said Pemper. "To go for 20 points against a 6-7 Fiacco? Just great.
"Some of those loose balls (late in the game) got physical, and the officials called it well. Alix is so good at getting to those loose balls and rebounds. She got some good tieups. Look at Audrey Bauer, playing 44 minutes and getting 11 points, which is good for her. And it just felt that everyone who came in contributed."
"Alix had key shots," said Geif. "She was the one to hit one against Fiacco with the shot clock winding down. Those are buckets you need to win. It is so key; you could saw that energy and fight in her eyes that she really wanted it."
Lafayette's offense was very balanced as Homan scored 12 points, O'Hare 11 points and Fiacco 10 points. Fiacco also chipped in 10 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots.
Navy and Bucknell split the regular season series this year. The Mids posted a 61-40 victory over the Bison in Alumni Hall on Feb. 2, then the Bison recorded a 55-48 win March 2 in Lewisburg.
