Mavericks Come Back to Defeat Lions in AMCC Semifinals

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – It's déjà vu all over again. The Medaille women's basketball team ended Penn State Behrend's run at the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) title for the second straight year with a 58-49 win in the conference semifinals on Friday night.

The Mavericks (22-4) outscored the Lions (21-5) 37-19 in the second half thanks to 52 percent shooting and going 8-for-10 from the free-throw line in the final minute of the game to advance to their second straight championship game.

Joelle Pollak scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed six rebounds in the win.

Brittany Wilwohl (Erie, PA/Villa Maria Academy) recorded 14 points, scoring 10 of Behrend's 19 second-half points. Kimmy Pol (Erie, PA/Collegiate Academy) contributed nine points.

The second semifinal game of the night proved to be the tale of two halves. The Lions only trailed after the opening basket by Medaille and eventually took a comfortable 20-9 lead on back-to-back treys by Wilwohl and Pol.

The Mavericks made it a four-point game with 1:47 to play in the first half, but Behrend scored the last five points to take a nine-point advantage into the locker room.

Medaille had everything go its way in the second stanza, erasing the deficit and tying the game for the first of five times in the half at the 15:22 mark. From here, the game played out like the championship title was on the line.

Point-for-point, the game came to its sixth deadlock at 48-all with 1:39 remaining.  Wilwohl knocked in two from the line for the Lions final lead of the game by one point.  The Mavericks came up with the offensive rebound off two missed free throws on consecutive trips to the line to force Behrend to keep sending them to the charity stripe.

Taneda Travis, Meghan Dougherty and Pollak each hit a pair of free throws to help Medaille advance to the championship game against La Roche, the winner of the first semifinal.

The Lions only shot 14.3 percent from the floor in the second half and 23.8 percent for the entire game.

Behrend will await a postseason bid to the ECAC Tournament, announced on Monday.