RMU wins title, tournament trip
Saint Francis was surging.
The No. 4 seed Red Flash had started getting to the rim, cutting No. 1 seed Robert Morris’ 13-point lead to two with a little over four minutes to go in the Northeast Conference championship game Sunday at Robert Morris.
With an NCAA tournament berth at stake, Colonials freshman guard Isabella Posset found sophomore guard Nina Augustin, who swished a 3-pointer, then found freshman guard Esther Castedo in the corner for another 3 two minutes later.
The six-point swing coupled with some key stops down the stretch helped Robert Morris to a 65-54 win, with the Colonials tournament bound for the sixth time overall and the third time in four years.
“Even when they made that real big run and their energy was real high, I had 100 percent faith that this team would continue to pull through and continue to do what we needed to do to overcome the run that they made,” Robert Morris coach Charlie Buscaglia said.
Posset added 12 points, 6 assists and 3 rebounds. Augustin led the Colonials with 14 points and was named to the all-tournament team, and junior center Nneka Eziegbo had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds and was named the tournament MVP.
“They did a good job down the stretch of making that one more pass that we try to do so much,” Saint Francis coach Susan Robinson Fruchtl said. “The thing is,
you knock them down, and it’s a big moment.”
Robert Morris beat Saint Francis twice in the regular season. Last year, a No. 1 seed Saint Francis beat No. 2 seed Robert Morris, 66-56.
But none of that mattered to Buscaglia, really.
“I tell them, no matter if we’re 0-2, 2-0 against them, 1-1, every game has its own identity, every game has its own challenges. … The fact that we’re playing them for the third time, we had to be better than them with our work ethic as far as preparing and not getting comfortable with the fact that you know, well, we beat them twice, so we’ll just go out there and do the same thing,” Buscaglia said.
But the result didn’t waver, with the Colonials throwing senior guard Jess Kovatch, the two-time NEC player of the year who led all scorers with 18 points, just off-balance enough. Kovatch had 6 rebounds and 4 turnovers and was held to 6 of 23 from the field, going 5 of 6 from the line.
Saint Francis shot 33.3 percent to RMU’s 36.1 percent, with RMU grabbing 42 rebounds to Saint Francis’ 40.
“It’s always been tough to play [Robert Morris], especially offensively, for me,” Kovatch said. “They did a good job of cutting my left hand and forcing me to drive and forcing me to not do a step-back 3, forcing me to go right and do something that I’m not usually used to. I give a lot of credit to them for that.”
Robert Morris led by six at the half, but Saint Francis scored the first five points of the third quarter to make it a one-point game and force a Colonials timeout.
Eziegbo, who entered Sunday’s game averaging 17.2 points and 8.1 rebounds in the past nine games but had a quiet first half on offense (five points), had a 3point play and Augustin sunk a 3-pointer to lead, 4333, with 3:49 to play in the third quarter. Augustin was 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
The Red Flash only scored two more field goals in the third and trailed RMU, 49-38, before making a run in the fourth quarter.