Dallas Women’s Basketball Victorious in NEAC Quarterfinal Game

In their first game of the NEAC Tournament, the fifth seeded University of Dallas women's basketball team defeated the number four seeded SUNY-IT Wildcats 71-63. Entering halftime, the game was nearly dead even, UD barely held on to a 28-27 lead, and was struggling from the field, hitting only 35 percent of their shots. In the second half UD came out strong though, taking control of the game and stepping up their game offensively. An aggressive approach inside of the paint led to 19 second half free throws, and the Crusaders hit 15 of 29 shots from the field as they pulled away from the Wildcats for the tournament win.

A major reason for the Crusaders win was junior forward Joirdan Cole (Plano, TX/Bishop Lynch H.S.) who had a monster game coming off of the bench. Cole scored 17 points, grabbed 9 boards, and blocked 3 shots in only 27 minutes of play. Also performing well were junior forward Cara Sczepanski (Highland Village, TX/Marcus H.S) and freshman guard Kylie Yoshimura (Temple City, CA/Mark Keppel H.S). Sczepanski registered her 14th double-double, with 17 points and 10 rebounds, close to her season averages, and Yoshimura had 14 points and led the team with 5 assists.

Coming into the game, the Lady Wildcats had won 7 out of their last 8 games, and were playing some of their best ball of the season. UD also has been on a bit of a hot streak of late though, and they proved themselves as one of the better teams in the tournament tonight with the win. Tomorrow UD will play in the semi-final round where they will take on the number one seeded Keuka College Storm. Overall the NEAC tournament is anyone's to win, several games against NEAC competition, the Storm only went 17-8 this season. Given the way Dallas has been playing as of late, and the quality of their opponents, it is safe to say that UD has a chance at upsetting the top seed for a place in the NEAC Championships. Tomorrow's game is scheduled for 3:00pm.