By Connor Wilson (@Conman_815)
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Every so often, once conference tournament season hits, you just know what the championship game will look like in a certain league before the madness even begins. The beauty of March is that it's a clean slate, but sometimes that isn’t good enough to disrupt the inevitable.
In the MAAC on the women’s side, it's one of those years.
After top-seeded Fairfield escaped with a one-point win over Mount St. Mary’s, No. 2 seed Quinnipiac followed suit with a 65-51 win over sixth-seeded Merrimack to advance to Saturday’s MAAC Championship game with a spot in the NCAA Tournament on the line.
“I thought it was a great team effort from Quinnipiac,” head coach Tricia Fabbri said. “I just told the team in the locker room that I’ve done this for quite some time, and the hardest wins are always the first one and the semifinal win that propels you into a championship.”
The Bobcats were led once again by Gal Raviv, as the freshman sensation scored a game-high 23 points in 38 minutes and took control of the offensive flow. She wasn’t as efficient as Wednesday, finishing 9-of-22 from the field, but hit some timely baskets to halt Warrior runs on multiple occasions.
“It’s just so fun,” Raviv said. “Staying together and playing together the whole game.”
For the second straight game, it took both Raviv and the Bobcats some time to warm up before breaking the game open. Quinnipiac didn’t have its first lead until the second quarter media timeout, but once it got the advantage, it never lost it.
“It’s just seeing what the opponent is doing and trying to take away,” Fabbri said. “It’s also on the coaching to make the adjustments to have success.”
Anna Foley and Ella O’Donnell each were able to exploit the size advantage they had over the Warriors, both finishing with 12 points apiece. Foley also added two key rejections inside late in the third quarter to keep more points off the board while the Warriors were rallying.
“They were a pretty small team and in foul trouble, so we knew we had an advantage we needed to take,” Foley said. “Credit to Gal and all our guards getting us the ball and we knew we could trust our skills.”
The win for the Bobcats is important, but looking at the bigger picture, 1:30 p.m. Saturday is much more worth the talking point. Quinnipiac comes into the title game with a 28-3 record, Fairfield 27-4. The two teams split the season series, with the Stags winning in their home gym by nine in January and the Bobcats returning the favor just this past Saturday in Hamden.
“It’s a great day for the MAAC,” Foley said. “The top two teams, we’ve kind of been picturing this moment all season. It all boils down to this. Credit to (Fairfield) for having a great season, but we have our heart set on a championship.”
Even with both teams enjoying dominant seasons, it's highly unlikely we’ll see a two-bid MAAC in 2025, adding even higher stakes to Saturday’s game, not that it needed more.
“I know it's called ‘mid-major,’ but these are two heavyweights,” Fabbri said. “Both underrated in terms of where the talk is for an at-large. I know we’re not going to get it because you need to win in March as a mid-major, but these two programs have been historic.”
It all comes down to 40 minutes on Saturday until we’ll have a MAAC champion.
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