KINGS POINT, N.Y. (March 1, 2025) – The top-seeded U.S. Merchant Marine Academy women's basketball team lost in overtime to the visiting #2-seed Mount St. Mary Knights, 81-76, on Saturday in the 2025 Skyline Conference Championship Game at the Liebertz Gymnasium. The setback drops the Mariners' record to 24-2, while MSMC improves to 17-10 and earns the Skyline's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.
 
Game Link

• Box Score

Three players recorded double-doubles for the Mariners, as freshman Carolae Barton (Waldorf, Md.) had a team-high 22 points to go along with 12 rebounds, sophomore Emily Grasseler (Millbrook, N.Y.) scored 21 and led all players with 13 rebounds and junior Hannah Ramsden (Port Aransas, Texas) added 13 points and 11 rebounds.
 
Barton also dished out six assists and recorded a game-high four blocks. Seniors Abby Stramski (Jones, Okla.) and Kaira Winston (Chesterfield, Va.) both contributed nine points each, with Winston also leading all players in the game with eight assists.
 
Despite the Mariners racing out to a 12-0 lead to start the game (thanks to an over 71% shooting percentage in the first 5.5 minutes), the Knights took advantage of a number of KP turnovers over the next 10 minutes and slowly crawled back to tie the game at 26-26 at 5:03 of the second quarter. Mount St. Mary went on to take a lead shortly after and led most of the rest of the quarter and took a three-point lead, 36-33, into the locker room at halftime.
 
Most of the third quarter and early part of the fourth saw the Knights grab leads of as many as six points and Merchant Marine inching closer and closer to tying the game, but they were not able to get closer than one point most of those 15 minutes. That changed at 4:14 of the fourth when Barton hit 1-of-2 free throws to tie the game up at 56-56.
 
The Mariners eventually went up by as many as six points after Stramski hit a 3-pointer with 2:08 to play to get the KP fans on their feet and the gym rocking. The good times were short-lived however, as the Mariners missed a couple of key free-throws late and the Knights went on a 6-0 run to tie the game back up at 65-66 with 1:01 to play. Both teams had a chance to possess the ball with under a minute to play, but neither team made a successful shot and the game went to overtime.
 
MSMC scored the first basket of the extra frame before the Mariners rattled off a 6-0 run to take a 71-67 advantage at 2:58. However, the Knights responded with an 8-0 run to tie their largest lead of the night of six points, 77-71, with just 37 seconds left.
 
The Mariners were able to cut the lead back down to just three, 77-74, with 12 seconds left, but the Knights made 4-of-4 free throws in the closing seconds to seal the championship.
 
Mount St. Mary was led by the tournament's Most Outstanding Player junior Brianna Guglielmo, who drained a game-high 29 points and swiped a game-best six steals. Four other Knights scored in double-figures, as senior Casey Love and freshman Margaret Trinkaus both added 11 points each and graduate student Kate Hughes drained 10 points to go along with a team-best six rebounds.
 
The Mariners' fate now rests in the hands of the NCAA DIII Women's Basketball Selection Committee, as there's still a chance for KP to earn an at-large bid into the field of 64 teams for the NCAA Tournament. The selection show is slated for Monday afternoon. An exact time and the link to watch the selection show will be posted on our social media pages by Monday morning (see links below).
 
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