No. 4 Bears Clash With No. 1 Mount Saint Mary in #SkylineWBB Championship Semifinal Thursday

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Following their 76-68 first-round victory over No. 5 seed College of Mount Saint Vincent, No. 4 seed St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) will make the trip up to Newburgh to face No. 1 seed Mount Saint Mary College in the 2020 Skyline Conference Women's Basketball Championship Semifinal on Thursday, February 27, at 7 p.m.

The winner will face either No. 2 Manhattanville or No. 3 Merchant Marine on Saturday, February 29 for the conference title and the league's automatic berth to the 2020 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship.

Game Info

Date: Thursday, February 27, 2020
Time: 7 pm
Location: Kaplan Center (330 Powell Ave., Newburgh, NY 12550) | Directions
Admission: $5 Adults, $2 Students

Live Coverage: Stats | Video

St. Joseph's: Roster | Schedule | Stats | Stats (PDF)

Mount Saint Mary: Roster | Schedule | Stats | Stats (PDF) | Preview

#SkylineWBB: Championship Central | Stats | Stats (PDF) | Program

Last Time Out

February 25, 2020 - Skyline First Round

St. Joseph's 76, Mount Saint Vincent 68

The Hill Center - Brooklyn, N.Y. | Boxscore

Led by Lauren Quesada (Westbury, N.Y./St. Francis Prep) the Bears opened the game with a 14-0 spurt and led by as many as 21 in the second. CMSV assembled a second-half comeback behind DarNeisha Brice and Gabriella Goldman to take a one-point lead in the fourth quarter. But the Bears would only trail briefly as Quesada knocked down the next five points and the Bears held on to the lead from the free throw line to advance to their first Skyline semifinal.

Quesada went 11-of-19 from the field and 6-of-10 from beyond the arc en route to a career-high 33 points while collecting 13 rebounds. Kelly O'Donnell (Brooklyn, N.Y./St. Edmund Prep) maintained her scoring average adding 22 points of her own, and scoring her 1,500th career point in the process. Deserae Sequeira (Clark, N.J./Arthur L. Johnson) dished out 10 total dimes while pulling down seven boards.

Brice led the Dolphins with 29 points while Aria Rheams registered an 18-point, 11-rebound double-double.

2019-20 Regular Season Meetings

January 11, 2020

Mount Saint Mary 63, St. Joseph's 53

The Hill Center - Brooklyn, N.Y. | Boxscore

Despite trailing by as many as 14 in the first half, the Bears chipped away at the Knight lead throughout the second half; ultimately coming within a point of MSMC early in the fourth quarter. The visitors, however, used a 14-2 run in the closing stanza to put the game out of reach from the Bears.

O'Donnell and Alexis Breen (Union Beach, N.J./Keyport) were the only Bears to see double figures, scoring 19 and 11 points, respectively. Emma Kiley (Whitestone, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy) collected a game-high 12 rebounds and blocked seven shots on the day.

Junior Morina Bojka led the way for the Knights with 21 points, eight rebounds and six assists while senior Lyndsay Pace scored 17 points, collected eight caroms, a pair of assists and forced two steals. Annie Keenan was the team's leading rebounder with 10 boards.

January 28, 2020

Mount Saint Mary 76, St. Joseph's 53

Kaplan Center - Newburgh, N.Y. | Boxscore

O'Donnell netted 14 of the Bears' 16 first-quarter points, giving them the two-point advantage in the second quarter. Gabriella Rafaniello and Toriana Tabasco provided most of the scoring for Mount Saint Mary, giving them a one-point halftime lead before the Knights used the second half to distance themselves from SJC, winning the game and sweeping the regular-season series.

O'Donnell posted 28 points on six rebounds, four steals, and two assists. Sequeira was the next leading scorer with nine points, six boards, and four assists. Kiley once again led the team with 11 rebounds, 10 of which came on the defensive end.

Four Knights registered double figures on the afternoon, led by Pace's 21 on 6-of-12 shooting. Tabasco (17 pts, 12 reb) and Keenan (13 pts, 12 reb) each notched double-doubles while Bojka scored 10 points.

The Bear Facts

SJC is led by Kelly O'Donnell who enters the game at No. 10 in scoring in Division III with a Skyline-leading 21.8 points per game. She also cracks into the top 10 nationally in made free throws with 137. The junior guard became the 2nd Bear in the program's NCAA era to score 1,500 career points in Tuesday's win over CMSV. She is the leading career scorer among all active juniors in the nation with 1,514 points and 25th among all active players. 

On the boards, O'Donnell sees herself third in the conference with 10.2 rebounds per game and is one of just two players in the league this season to average a double-double. She has contributed to the team's Division III-leading 34.7 defensive rebounds per game with a team-high 6.5 defensive boards per game.

Deserae Sequeira is one of the top playmakers in the nation, closing out the regular season with 160 total dimes (8th in Division III) and 6.2 assists per game (9th in Division III) and leads the conference in both categories.

O'Donnell and Sequeira are the only two Bears to start all 26 games of the 2019-20 campaign.

Senior Lauren Quesada, who went off for a career-high 33 points and game-high 13 rebounds on Tuesday, is third on the team; averaging 11.4 points and 8.3 rebounds per game.

With four Skyline Rookie of the Week honors to her name, Emma Kiley averages 12.7 points per game and is shooting 46.7 percent from the field to lead the Skyline. On the defensive end, she is second on the team and fifth in the conference with 9.8 rebounds. In just 20 games, the freshman center set the program record for blocks in a season. Kiley currently holds the league lead with 89 total blocks, third in the nation, and 3.48 blocks per game, fourth in Division III.

SJC has qualified for the Skyline Conference Championship in four of the last five years and makes their first semifinal appearance in program history. The Bears put a six-game win streak on the line but have a tall task trying to pick up their first win over the Knights since joining the Skyline and try for their first win in Newburgh.

The Knightly News

With a 20-5 overall record (18-2 Skyline), Mount Saint Mary secured their third consecutive 20-win season as well as a third Skyline No. 1 seed in as many years. Earlier today, they were ranked fifth in the NCAA Division III Atlantic Region rankings, up to spots from last week. Despite finishing as runner-up in 2019, the Knights received an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Championship and secured a first-round victory. Mount Saint Mary seeks their first Skyline title since 2012 and their ninth all-time—the Knights won eight titles in nine years from 2004 to 2012.

Lyndsay Pace (57) and Torina Tabasco (52) have 109 of the team's Skyline-leading 299 steals as the team averages 12 steals per game. The Knights also lead the league in turnovers forced with 23.08. The team is also second in the conference in made three-point field goals (7.8).

Mount Saint Mary has won the last 10 games against St. Joseph's dating back to January 2016.

Morina Bojka leads the team with a 45.9 field-goal percentage on 18.2 points per game, placing in the Skyline top three in the respective categories. With 11.1 points on the year, Annie Keenan finds herself behind Bojka in scoring but is MSMC's leading rebounder with 9.2 boards per game (9th in Skyline).

Apart from leading the team in steals, Pace dished out a team-high 77 assists on the year. She also possesses a 1.46 assist to turnover ratio, good for third in the league.

Sophomore Lauren Desrats currently shoots 31.4 from beyond the arc, a team-high and sixth in the conference, to go with 10.8 points per game to crack the top 25 in the league.