Final Stats

Washington, D.C. -- American shot at least 50 percent from the field in each half and limited the Navy women's basketball team to an overall mark of 39 percent on its way to posting a 60-53 victory in a Patriot League Tournament semifinal round game Monday night at Bender Arena in Washington, D.C.

American (23-8), the top-seed in the field, advances to Saturday's championship game against sixth-seeded Lehigh with tonight's victory. The fifth-seeded Mids (17-14), the lone team to advance to the semifinal round in each of the last seven tournaments, has its season come to an end with the loss.

"Just really upset and disappointed," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper of the loss. "I thought we came into the game with all of the right emotion and focus and were well prepared. I felt we were peaking. It is tough to lose, tough to end your season, especially with this group and everything they achieved, the energy they had, the camaraderie they had. I felt we absolutely could have won this game and advance to our fourth championship game in five years and give whomever we would have played Saturday a run for their money.

"Give a lot of credit to American. They did a lot of things right and made the shots when needed."

The Eagles started the game on fire as they scored on each of their first seven possessions of the game to jump out to leads of 8-0 and 14-2. The Mids slowly chipped away at the deficit and closed to within five points at 20-15 with 9:27 left in the first half. The teams traded baskets until back-to-back field goals by Sarita Condie (So., Lovelock, Nev.) followed by another from Ashanti Kennedy (So., Virginia Beach, Va.) pulled Navy to within 26-25 with 2:31 remaining in the frame. American closed the half with the last four points to take a 30-26 lead into the break.

Condie started the second half by draining consecutive triples to give Navy a 31-30 lead a little more than two minutes into the stanza.

"I think it is a real credit to our team for the way they battled back from that early deficit," said Pemper.

American responded by scoring the next seven points to regain the lead at 37-31 before opening up a 42-33 cushion with 11:51 remaining in the game.

Condie again drilled back-to-back three-point shots to winnow the margin back down to three points at 42-39 with 9:50 still on the clock. The Eagles answered with the next three field goals to extend their lead out to 48-39 with 7:15 remaining, then built a 54-43 advantage with just over four minutes left to play.

American shot 56.5 percent from the field in the first half and 50 percent in the second, while Navy made 37.9 percent of its first half shots and 40 percent of its second half attempts. The Mids were 7-23 (30.4%) from three-point land while the Eagles made 3-13 (23.1%) of their shots from behind the arc.

Navy did hold a slight lead in rebounding, 29-27, and committed only one more turnover than American did, 12-11, but the Mids were whistled for 14 fouls while the Eagles were called for just six fouls.

Condie ended the game with 20 points on 4-8 shooting from three-point range and 6-12 shots from the floor in all. That ties the career high she set Friday night in Navy's quarterfinal round win at Bucknell. Kennedy also shot the ball well, connecting on 7-9 attempts from the floor to end the game with a career-high 15 points.

Chloe Stapleton (Sr., Cary, N.C.) closed out her Navy career with a pair of three-point baskets -- to move into solo second place at the school with 218 career triples -- and eight points in all. After Stapleton was the lone returning starter and one of two letter winners on the team back from last season, she is the lone player the Mids will lose to graduation this spring.

American's Jen Dumiak, the 2015 Patriot League Player of the Year, tallied 16 points, five assists and four steals.