WORCESTER, Mass. – The Navy women's basketball team clinched a top-six seed in the upcoming Patriot League Tournament with a well-rounded victory over Holy Cross on Saturday afternoon. Coming into the day three games up on seventh-place Lafayette with four games to go, the Mids (16-10, 8-7 PL) left nothing to fate as they received strong performances from throughout their roster and led for over 36 minutes as part of a 66-57 win on the Crusaders' (16-10, 9-6 PL) home court.

In a complete showing of top-to-bottom accomplishment at the Hart Center, all six Mids that played more than 12 minutes on Saturday finished with seven or more points. Zanai Barnett-Gay (So., Glenn Dale, Md.) led her squad with 18 points to go along with six rebounds, six assists and a steal. Julianna Almeida (Fr., North Arlington, N.J.) recorded her first career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds over a team-high 38 minutes. Kyah Smith (So., Richmond, Va.) gave Navy its third double-digit scorer with 10 points off the bench. Maren Louridas added a career-high 13 rebounds in addition to scoring seven points and assisting on three other baskets.

"This was a great team win," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "After watching back the film, Maren and Toni [Papahronis] had some of their best defensive efforts of the season. They were really consistent throughout the game. I thought we did a really nice job getting rebounds and getting out into transition. We made some really, really good decisions with the basketball today. One the biggest factors in the game was we held them to zero offensive rebounds in the second half, that was huge. We really defended well. I really believe that since the five-minute mark of Wednesday's game against Colgate, we've put together seven-and-a-half quarters of high level defense for the most part. When you look down our lineup and see everyone getting seven, eight, nine shots; that means the ball is moving.

"I was really pleased with our effort. It's hard to go out on the road and put together a complete game, especially after we've lost four-in-a-row and three of those games by one late possession. It's easy for kids to get down on themselves and not compete, but we left that behind us and competed for 40 physical, intense minutes. That was something we stressed pregame, we wanted to play for 40 minutes; I felt we did that."

Invigorated by their home crowd and celebrating their senior class, the Crusaders broke out to an early 5-2 lead over the opening two minutes before the Mids fired back with back-to-back baskets by Barnett-Gay and Toni Papahronis (Jr., Edmond, Okla.) to take the lead 7-5 by the 6:50 mark. After Holy Cross pulled even a minute later, Navy ran off a streak of nine of the next 11 points to go up 16-9 at 2:59. Barnett-Gay scored seven of her team's points during this stretch. The Crusaders closed the quarter on an 8-2 run to tighten the game to an 18-17 score through 10 minutes of play.

The ebbs-and-flow of the contest flipped back to the Mids to start the second period as the visitors scored seven of the first nine points to build their lead back out to six, 25-19 over the first 2:37 of the quarter. Navy's juniors played a leading role in this strong start as Louridas sank a three-pointer at 8:02 before Morgan Demos (Jr., Downers Grove, Ill.) found Papahronis for an easy layup at 7:23. The two-time defending Patriot League champions, Holy Cross twice cut its deficit to two points over the next six minutes before Barnett-Gay concluded the stanza with a pair of consecutive field goal conversions in the final 67 seconds to end the half at 33-27 in favor of Navy. Defensively, the Mids held the Crusaders to just 4-15 from the field as part of their 10-point output in the quarter.

The second half opened with the margin holding between four and seven points for Navy over the initial three-plus minutes. With the score 36-31, Simone Foreman helped Holy Cross draw within three points with a jumper at 6:05. A successful 'and-one' situation for Almeida 46 seconds later jolted the Mids back up six. The yo-yo action of the scoreboard saw the Crusaders whittle their deficit to three at 3:58 before Saran Moschella (So., Staten Island, N.Y.) responded with a three-pointer and a minute later a similar basket-for-basket rebuttal occurred with Almeida nailing her first three-pointer of the game to make it 45-38 at 2:34. An exchange of field goals in the final 83 seconds of the quarter slightly improved Holy Cross' chances at the end of the stanza as the teams retired to their benches with Navy up 47-42.

The close competitive clash continued into the final quarter as the Mids bent, but never broke as the Crusaders were able to make it a one-possession game at 8:31 when it was 47-45 and later at 5:39 when the score was 51-48. Driving layups by Papahronis and Smith 28 seconds apart quickly gave Navy breathing room at 55-48. The Mids never allowed the Crusaders to get closer than five (57-52 and 62-57) to clinch the road victory. Smith led Navy's scoring effort in the fourth with six of the Mids' 19 points as six different players recorded points.

For the game, Navy out-shot Holy Cross, 39.4 percent (26-66) to 37.7 (23-61) from the field, while the Crusaders had nominal edges in three-point shooting, 36.4 percent (4-11) to 25.0 (6-24) and 63.6 percent (7-11) to 61.5 (8-13) from the foul line.

Navy had a substantial advantage in the rebounding, 47-36 as the Mids grabbed 12 offensive caroms versus five for the Crusaders. Louridas led all players with 13 boards, while Almeida snagged 10; both results were personal career-highs.

Navy had a strong day handling the ball as it finished with a 14-to-10 assist-to-turnover ratio. Barnett-Gay posted a game-high with six helpers.

Defensively, the Mids forced nine Crusader turnovers and were credited with seven steals. Demos was active interrupting Holy Cross' post play with a game-high four steals.

"Everyone that played today had their moment to shine," said Taylor in closing. "Morgan Demos got a couple of big offensive rebounds; they [Holy Cross] cut it to three and Toni got a big-time layup; Saran [Moschella] hit a big three at the top of the key when they were making a run. I feel like a lot of our offense was fueled by our defense. Every time we needed a basket, we came through. When it was 47-45, we got a couple of key stops to keep them from taking the lead and responded with baskets. We're taking a lot of positives out of this."

The combined result of Navy's win and Lafayette's loss against Lehigh clinched a top-six regular season finish for the Mids as they're four games clear of the Leopards with three to go. Following all of Saturday's action, Navy is just one game back of Bucknell and Holy Cross, who are tied for fourth place with identical 9-6 league marks. The Mids have swept the season series versus both the Bison and Crusaders.

Navy will begin its final stretch of regular season action with a home matchup versus American on Wednesday. Tip-off between the Mids and Eagles is set for 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall.