St. John Fisher held Gettysburg to a season-low 46 points and 31.7 percent shooting from the floor in a 55-46 victory in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Div. III women’s basketball tournament at Rhode Island College on Friday night. Gettysburg, finishing the season at 24-5, had its winning streak snapped at 18 games, which was the second-longest streak in program history.
Shinya Lee led the Bullets with 10 points and 11 rebounds, while Mackenzie Szlosek chipped in nine points and six rebounds.
Claire Kruszka led the Cardinals with 16 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Kruszka hit a 3-pointer from the wing to stake St. John Fisher to a 3-0 lead just 2:16 into the game. Lee responded with a layup just over a minute to cut the deficit to 3-2, but a Katie Moravec three-point play stretched the advantage to 6-2 with 5:45 on the clock. Gettysburg’s Alayna Arnolie, recently named Centennial Conference Player of the Year, went high off the glass with 4:03 showing before Marah McHugh hit a layup to tie the game with 1:53 remaining. Another Kruszka triple in the final minute gave the Cardinals a 9-6 edge after one quarter.
Presleigh Brunner stretched the lead to 11-6 in the opening 40 seconds of the second quarter before Reagan Chrencik (New Hope, Pa./New Hope Solebury) and Kruszka traded triples. That sparked an 8-2 stretch by Fisher that opened up a 19-11 lead with 4:57 remaining. Emily Violante (Easton, Pa./Easton Area) snapped a 4-minute, 40-second scoring drought with a layup at the 3:22 mark. Two Lee free throws with 46.2 seconds remaining trimmed the margin to 20-17, but Sidney Tomasso responded with a 3-pointer to make it a 23-17 game at the break.
Tomasso scored the first five points of the third quarter to open up a 28-17 lead just 96 seconds after the break. Lee then finished off a Szlosek steal-and-dish on the break to cut it back to single digits with 7:58 to play. The Bullets extended the run to six straight, closing to within 28-23 with 7:00 on the clock. Trailing 35-28, Arnolie hit a pull-up elbow jumper with 1:49 showing before a McHugh jumper closed the deficit to three. Chrencik then drained a 3-pointer as the third quarter expired to tie the game at 35-all.
Lusk hit a layup 47 seconds into the fourth quarter and canned the second of two free throws to put the Cardinals back up three. The lead grew back to as large as seven before a single AB Holsinger free throw with 5:22 cut the deficit to 42-36. Lauren Nawojski responded with a layup on the other end to stretch the advantage back to eight. A Holsinger pull-up eight-footer with 1:12 to play closed the margin to 48-44, but that’s as close as the Bullets could get down the stretch.
With the win, St. John Fisher (Pittsford, N.Y.) will go on to face Rhode Island College on Saturday.
This story first appeared on the Gettysburg College website.