No. 1 Athenas advance to tournament final with victory over No. 4 Redlands

[Watch interview with Claire Donnelly here]

CLAREMONT, Calif. – In the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) women's basketball postseason tournament, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps beat the University of Redlands 70-47 on Thursday night in the Linde Activities Center. The Athenas jumped out to an early lead and maintained it for all forty minutes.

In the first quarter, Claire Donnelly (CMC) for CMS went to work going 3-for-3 in the period, all in the first five minutes.  For the Bulldogs, Brinsley Farry offered up four shots in the first quarter and sunk two of them to combine for five points. Farry, the team's leading three-point shooter made two on the night.

The Bulldogs went through a drought in the second quarter only shooting nine percent (1-for-11) while the Athenas poured in 24 points connecting on nine of 12 shots. In the period, Jai Dungca (CMC) tallied three steals and nine points.

At halftime, CMS owned the 26 point lead, up 42-16. Dungca led with 15 points and Donnelly remained perfect from the field at 5-for-5. Redlands' second leading scorer, Reyna Ta'amu, put together five points in the half including going 2-for-2 at the free throw line.

The Bulldogs put up their highest point total yet with 15 in the third quarter but CMS topped that at 18, stretching out its lead to 29. CMS' Kylie Au (CMC) scored the most points in her career in the third quarter alone, making two layups and an and-one after getting fouled going to the hoop.

Redlands narrowed the margin to 23 points by the end of the game with six different players contributing in the fourth quarter.

In the game, the Athenas out-stole Redlands 11 to 3 and forced almost double the turnovers they surrendered.

Ultimately, Dungca, CMS' leading scorer, had 15 points for her 12^th game in double-digit scoring. Farry led UR with 10, higher than her average of 7.0 points per game.

Ta'amu led all players with 10 boards followed by Kris Brackmann (CMC) on CMS with eight.

Redlands finishes their season at 12-14 while CMS (21-5) advances to play Cal Lutheran in the tournament final on Saturday, Feb. 27, time TBA.

Box Score

By Emily Nordhoff
Sports Information Director

Sign up for CMS Email Updates
Become a fan of CMS Athletics on Facebook: AthleticsCMS
Follow CMS Athletics on Twitter: @AthleticsCMS
Follow CMS Women's Basketball on Twitter: @CMSWBasketball
CMS Athletics on Instagram: cmsathletics
Watch CMS Athletics videos on YouTube: ClaremontMuddScripps
#goathenas    #gostags