Drexel University
Old Dominion
Dragons Make History, Dethrone Lady Monarchs in CAA Tournament For First Time Ever
3/14/2009 2:42:41 PM | Women's Basketball
Harrisonburg, Va. - For the first time in 17 years, Old Dominion will not take home the CAA Championship. Drexel ousted the Lady Monarchs from the tournament for the first time since they joined the league in 1991-92 with a 62-41 victory in the semifinals at the JMU Convocation Center. Gabriela Marginean led all scorers with 20 points. Jasmina Rosseel added 12 and Nicole Hester, who was a freshman on the team when the Dragons lost to ODU in the 2004-05 semifinals, chipped in 10 points and two steals. Rookie Tyler Hale gave her team a big lift on defense, pulling down a career-high 10 rebounds and swiping four steals to go with five points off the bench for Drexel. With the win, the top-seeded Dragons (23-9) advance to the CAA Championship game for the first time ever. They will face the host James Madison Dukes, who advanced in the other semifinal with a win over Virginia Commonwealth, in the championship at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow.
With the victory, Drexel improves to 23-9 on the season which is the most wins ever for the Dragons, besting a mark set by the 1989-90 team which was also the last Drexel squad to make it to a conference tournament final. That season Drexel advanced to the East Coast Conference Championship before falling to Delaware in the final game.
Drexel led 26-22 at halftime and used a 14-5 run to open the second half to pull away from the Lady Monarchs. Drexel shot 57.9 percent in the period and the Dragons' defense held Old Dominion to just 26.9 percent shooting in the game, including a scoreless streak of nearly five and a half minutes in the first half, and forced 21 Lady Monarch turnovers. The undersized Dragons also outworked their counterparts on the boards 38-30.
The Dragons trailed by five points, 13-8, midway through a physical first half struggle with the Lady Monarchs. That's when Marginean took over. She scored eight straight points for the Dragons to propel her team into the lead at the 6:48 mark on a pair of free throws. The Dragons grabbed a 14-13 lead and the opportunistic Dragons would not surrender it again in the contest.
The Lady Monarchs used a five-point spurt capped by a last-second three-point heave by Jasmine Parker that cut what had been a nine-point Drexel lead just seconds before to six at the break.
But the Dragons would not leave the contest up to chance in the second half. Marigean missed a jumper but followed her shot and tipped the rebound out to Hale. Hale retipped it to Peterson, who collected the ball at the top of the lane. Peterson drove the lane and shoveled a pass out to Marginean on the wing for a mid-range baseline jumper. On the other side of the court Peterson tipped up a pass on the perimeter for a steal. She passed it off to Hester who quickly launched a baseball pass to a sprinting Marginean for a layup.
These two hustle plays ignited a 10-2 Drexel run that gave Drexel a 12-point lead, 36-24, at the 16:41 mark. The Lady Monarchs racheted up the pressure and cut the lead down to eight points at 40-32 with just under 11 minutes left after Jessica Canady completed a three-point play.
This time it would be the senior Hester who composed her team. She knocked down one of two free throws then drained a pull-up jumper on the elbow and drove the lane for a layup on three successive possessions to counter ODU scores. From there the Dragons used a 9-2 run to open up a comfortable 54-37 lead on a three-pointer by Peterson that seemed to deflate the defending champs with just over three minutes to play.
Marginean added an emphatic finish to the Drexel victory when she broke the Old Dominion press and used a behind-the-back dribble to slice her way down the lane before banking in a layup to make it a 59-41 Drexel game with two minutes to go. On the other end of the court Peterson pulled away a steal to cap a sensational defensive effort by the Dragons.
Drexel's victory not only gives the team the most wins in program history, but it also snapped a 51-game winning streak by the Lady Monarchs in the CAA Tournament. The Dragons own winning streak is now at 15 games going into the tournament final tomorrow, just one win shy of matching the program's record. The championship game will tip off at 3:30 p.m. from the JMU Convocation Center. It will also air live on The Comcast Network and on CN8 via tape delay.
