Top 10 Moments: #4 – Women's Basketball Stuns USCAA Champs En Route to HVWAC Title

Resilience is a key attribute of any championship team and the 2012-13 St. Joseph’s College (Brooklyn) women’s basketball team was no different as they had to persevere through many trials and tribulations including a 19-point loss to an Albany Pharmacy team they would later meet in the Hudson Valley Women’s Athletic Conference (HVWAC) Tournament Championship en route to their fifth tournament title.

St. Joseph’s concluded the regular season going 8-2 down the stretch to finish at 14-10 with one of the losses coming at the hands of HVWAC rival Albany Pharmacy, 67-48, in a game that saw the Lady Bears shoot only 28.3% from the field and on the wrong side of a 44-33 rebounding margin. St. Joseph’s left Albany knowing that a rematch versus the Panthers was a distinct possibility and that in order to beat them they would need to play at a higher level.

The Lady Bears dispatched Berkeley College rather easily in the HVWAC Tournament semifinals and would have to beat a Panthers team in the Championship game that looked unbeatable after shooting a season-best 63 percent against the College of New Rochelle on their way to a blowout win.

The rematch between Albany Pharmacy and St. Joseph’s came almost exactly two weeks after the disappointing 19-point loss up in Albany and saw the Panthers jump out to an early lead but the Lady Bears never let the deficit get to double digits and a pair of baskets from sophomore Taylor Raccuglia (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Kearney) in the final two minutes had St. Joseph’s trailing by only three, 26-23, heading into the locker rooms.

However, after the intermission two completely different teams came out of the locker rooms as the Lady Bears went on a 17-8 second-half run helped by 11 points by junior Kelly McNamee (Glendale, NY/Mary Louis) that gave St. Joseph’s the lead for good capturing their first league title since 2010. McNamee was named Tournament MVP as the guard scored 13 of her team-high 15 points in the second half finishing the night going 7-of-12 from the field.

The difference in the rematch was the Lady Bears suffocating defense as they held the Panthers to a season-worst 23 percent shooting with the St. Joseph’s defense clamping down in the second stanza limiting Albany Pharmacy to just five field goals and 16 percent shooting while the Lady Bears shot an impressive 50 percent from the field in the second half.

With their win against the Panthers, the Lady Bears level the all-time series in HVWAC title games at 2-2 with both teams squaring off in the last four championships.