Box Score
The No. 2 seeded Hawks of Hunter College (17-10 Overall, 10-3 CUNYAC) advanced to the City University of New York Championship game for the first time since 2005 as they defeated the No. 3 seeded Lightning of Lehman College (11-16 Overall, 8-5 CUNYAC) by a score of 62-57 Wednesday evening at the City College of New York's Nat Holman Gymnasium in upper Manhattan. With the victory, the Hawks will now meet Baruch College in the championship game of the tournament on Saturday afternoon at CCNY at 3:00pm. It will mark the first time in the history of the tournament that the two teams have met in the final.
In the victory for Hunter College, the Hawks were led by the strong performance of Juanita Whyms as the standout posted game-highs of 15 points and 17 rebounds while Shamar Stewartson netted 14 points and snatched three rebounds. In addition, Shay Branch El-Vielot added 12 points and five rebounds in the victory.
The game was tightly contested in the first half, and the Hunter College Hawks held a 32-30 lead as the teams headed into the locker room at halftime. Hunter built their lead up to seven points in the second half, taking a 43-36 lead, but a 17-8 run helped put Lehman College ahead by a score of 53-51. The Hawks would then put together eight consecutive points, taking a six point lead with just under three minutes to play and never relinquishing the lead in again in going on for the victory.
Despite the loss for the Lightning of Lehman College, Leslie Mencia led her squad with a team-high 15 points to go along with nine rebounds. Dorothy Hunte also put forth a strong effort with 10 points and three rebounds, and Barbara Febus added nine points, four rebounds, and four assists. Following the game, head coach Eric Harrison gave his thoughts.
"I felt as though we played with enough energy tonight, but it was Hunter that was able to make enough plays in the end," Harrison said. "Once Leslie got into foul trouble in the second half, we were forced to change our gameplan, and we weren't able to contain the Hawks defensively the way we would have liked to. I was proud of the way we played towards the end of the season and hopefully we can use this experience moving forward with this program."
Hunter College won the turnover battle, committing 17 miscues while forcing 22 Lightning mistakes. The Hawks also tallied eight steals compared to five for Lehman, and the Hawks connected on 17 of their 24 shots from the charity stripe while the Lightning struggled mightily from the line, hitting on just four of their 11 attempts.
Lehman out-rebounded Hunter College by a slim margin 42-39, and the Lightning also hit on 39 percent of their shots from the floor (23-59) while the Hawks connected on 20 of their 57 attempts (35.1 percent).
