UMW Lady Eagles Are Conference Champions

The University of Mary Washington Lady Eagles basketball team will head to the Division III NCAA tournament next week as division champions.

The Lady Eagles beat York College 50-46 to win the Capital Athletic Conference Championship tonight at the Anderson Center, remaining undefeated for the season.

Senior Katie Wimmer led the team with 15 points and senior Jenna McRae had 14 points and eight rebounds for the 27-0 Lady Eagles, tying the university record for consecutive wins. Guard Sam Partonen grabbed 10 rebounds for the game high.

The Lady Eagles were behind most of the first half until a late surge culminating in a McRae three-pointer with 31 seconds left that gave the team a 24-23 lead at halftime.

The second half started off slow, with neither team able to score until the 17:46 mark. The game went back and forth until the 6:15 mark when UMW went up by five points.

With 27 second left in the game, UMW led by just one point 47-46, but York was unable to capitalize on any scoring opportunities and McRae and Wimmer put the game away with free throw shots to retain the lead before McRae blocked a three-point attempt as the clock ran out. The leader changed five times in the second half.

UMW did not shoot well from the field today at 36.5 percent but it was slightly better than York's 34 percent. UMW made only 2 of 12 three pointers, but what did help was shooting 10-14 at the free-throw line. They also forced the York Lady Spartans to turn the ball over 13 times.

Next for UMW is the NCAA tournament and the team wil find out Monday who they play.

The UMW men's team plays tonight at 7 p.m.