An explosive fourth quarter by the Chestnut Hill College Women's Basketball team led to a decisive 83-65 win over the University of the District of Columbia Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C.
The Griffins improve to 3-5 with the win, their second straight.
Bridie McCann led all scorers with a career-high 25 points (9-18 FG, 7-13 3FG). She also had a career-high eight rebounds. Tiayo Adelekan also had a career night, scoring 15 points and recording her first collegiate double-double with 15 rebounds. Avery White rounded out the double figure scorers for the Griffins with 13 points.
Caleigh Edwards had a career high 11 rebounds while Bri Rider and Emily Sekerak added additional rebounding  with nine and eight respectively. White led  all players with nine assists.
Chestnut Hill led by just two points, 54-52, heading into the final period and opened the fourth quarter with a 7-1 run in the first 80 seconds of the period to push their lead to eight 61-53. The Firebirds closed within five, 63-58 with 7:14 left when the Griffins took over, making seven of their next 11 shots and exploding for a 20-2 run to lead 83-60 with just 2:23 left.
McCann and Adelekan had six points apiece during the run with White adding four. On the flip side while the CHC offense was clicking on all cylinders over the five minute stretch, the defense held the Firebirds to zero field goals and just four shots. The Firebirds did not make another field goal until the 1:25 mark, a stretch of 5:49. UDC scored the final five points of the game to make the final score 83-65, outscoring the Firebirds 29-13 in the final period.
The Griffins had trailed by as many as nine in the first quarter before the Griffins rallied to tie the score at 16-16 with a 13-4 run fueled by the play of Sekerak off the bench, who scored six points and had an assist on McCann's tying three-pointer during the run.
The Firebirds went back up by two before the quarter ended and jumped ahead by five 26-21 with 5:55 left in the second quarter. An 8-2 run by the Griffins, highlighted by three point buckets from Annie Jackson and McCann  gave Chestnut Hill their first lead of the game at 29-28. Rider's putback with just under a minute left expanded the lead to six before UDC cut the margin in half by the end of the quarter, 38-35.
UDC opened the third quarter with nine straight points to retake the lead 44-38 but CHC countered with 16 straight points (seven from White) to regain control and take a 54-44 lead with 3:28 left in the third quarter. Another run by the Firebirds (8-0) cut the Griffins lead down to two, 54-52 heading into the final period – which Chestnut Hill dominated.
Tori Williams and Kensley Benjamin led UDC with 16 points apiece. Williams also had nine rebounds and three assists.
For the game the Griffins shot 41.3% (31-75) while holding the Firebirds to just 28.4% (21-74) shooting. CH had a big advantage from long range, making eight of 20 three point shots (40%) to UDC's 3-for-26 (11.5%). Chestnut Hill outrebounded UDC 59-46 and took advantage of 12 Firebird turnovers, turning them into 26 points and outscoring UDC 26-13 in the points off turnovers category.
The women's basketball team returns to action as the travel to Waltham, Massachusetts to take on national ranked (#6/14) Bentley University on Sunda, December 1, 2024. Tipoff is set for 1:30 p.m.
