Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. – The Amherst College women's basketball team claimed its third consecutive NESCAC title and fourth in the past five years by pulling away for a 65-39 win over Tufts University in Sunday's championship game.

The teams were tied at 24-24 at the break, but Amherst opened the second half on a 20-4 run and never let Tufts back in the game. The Lord Jeffs increased their overall win streak to 63 and have now won 46 consecutive games in LeFrak Gymnasium.

Amherst improves to 27-0 on the season and will receive the NESCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. At 21-6, Tufts has made a strong case to receive one of the tournament's at-large bids.The NCAA's selection show is scheduled for Monday at 2:30 p.m.

Caroline Stedman '12 and Marcia Voigt '13 paced Amherst in scoring for the second time in as many days, with Stedman's 17 points leading all players and Voigt adding 13 off the bench. Kim Fiorentino '12 had five steals and two blocks to spearhead a Lord Jeff defense that held Tufts to 19.2 percent shooting in the second half.

Tufts accounted for the game's first six points and held Amherst scoreless for three minutes, but the Lord Jeffs found their rhythm and took an 8-6 lead on a three-pointer by Lem Atanga McCormick '12. Hannah Foley '15 pushed right back and knocked down a pair of threes for the Jumbos, bringing the score to 12-8 in favor of the visitors.

Three-pointers by Stedman and Fiorentino put Amherst back ahead, and the Jeffs would hold their lead until a pair of free throws by Liz Moynihan '14 made it a 24-22 game in favor of the Jumbos with 2:12 remaining in the half. A Stedman layup with 1:53 to go marked the final points of the period, as Tufts held a 21-12 rebounding edge and held the Jeffs to 32.0 percent shooting in the first 20 minutes.

The Jumbos' nationally-ranked defense held Amherst to its second lowest first-half point total of the season, but the Jeffs used exceptional defense from Fiorentino to break a 26-26 tie with a 14-0 run. Voigt took over on the offensive end and accounted for eight consecutive points during the pivotal stretch, as Amherst suddenly led 40-26 with 14:16 remaining.

The dagger came with 5:51 left in regulation, as first-year Megan Robertson pulled down an offensive rebound and got fouled on an up-and-under move, converting the three-point play to make it a 58-32 game in favor of the hosts. Amherst led by at least 21 the rest of the way, outscoring the Jumbos by a 41-15 margin in the second period.

Kate Barnosky '12 led Tufts in points (9) and rebounds (9), while Moynihan added seven points off the bench and Tiffany Kornegay '12 chipped in with seven boards. The Lord Jeffs shot 60.7 percent in the second half while holding the Jumbos to 5-of-26 from the floor.

In addition to her outstanding defensive efforts, Fiorentino provided Amherst with eight points, five rebounds and four assists. Atanga McCormick added 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including a 2-for-2 performance from behind the arc.

2012 NESCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 18 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Amherst 94, No. 8 Trinity 59
at No. 2 Tufts 57, No. 7 Connecticut College 40
at No. 3 Bowdoin 53, No. 6 Wesleyan 37
at No. 4 Colby 61, No. 5 Williams 59

Semifinals - Saturday, February 25 at Amherst
at No. 1 Amherst 66, No. 4 Colby 52
No. 2 Tufts 55, vs. No. 3 Bowdoin 40

Championship - Sunday, February 26
at No. 1 Amherst 65, No. 2 Tufts 39

2012 NESCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 18
at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, February 25
at Highest Remaining Seed

Championship - Sunday, February 26

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Basketball Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 18, 2012 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, February 25 and Sunday, February 26, respectively. The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the number one seed drawing the number 8 seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.  Teams will be re-bracketed with the highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action hosting both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Saturday, February 11.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.