RICHMOND — Hannah Schaible scored 17 points and Brianna Cummings added 15 points as top-seeded George Washington held Duquesne scoreless for more than seven minutes in the final quarter to rally for a 63-60 victory and claim its second consecutive Atlantic 10 tournament championship and NCAA tournament berth on Sunday.
Jonquel Jones added 10 points, 15 rebounds and six blocks for George Washington (26-6), which claimed its sixth A10 title. Caira Washington was named Most Outstanding Player after grabbing 12 rebounds to go with her nine points.
The Colonials trailed almost the entire game, but outscored Duquesne, 11-5, in the final quarter when it shot just 1-for-19 from the field.
“We just let our defense kind of close the game out for us,” said Jones, who made her presence felt inside, especially in the final quarter. “Sometimes the shots are not going, but the defense is something we can always … hang our hats on.”
Deva’Nyar Workman led the Dukes (27-5) with 18 points and Angela Staffileno had 11 points, but Duquesne — making its first appearance in the championship game — had no luck keeping it going once the Colonials turned up the defensive intensity with the title on the line.
“We went dry,” coach Dan Burt said. “Tonight, I thought we had good looks. They had Jonquel Jones.”
The Dukes started fast, leading 41-34 at halftime and 55-52 entering the final quarter.
“We felt like if we could keep the game close toward the end we would have a little bit more depth,” Colonials coach Jonathan Tsipis said. “We talked the whole week about how we hoped that it would come down to our defense and defensive rebounding.”
George Washington slowly erased the deficit in the third quarter, drawing even at 52-52 on Lauren Chase’s layup with 19 seconds to go.
Duquesne’s April Robinson, the A10 co-player of the year, rattled in her first basket since the first quarter — and her team’s 11th 3-pointer — just before the buzzer to give the Dukes a three-point margin heading into the final 10 minutes.
The Dukes trailed, 32-31, before going on a 10-2 run to close the half. Kadri-Ann Lass started the burst with a bucket in the lane, Workman added a 3-pointer and a driving lay-up and Staffileno capped the half with Duquesne’s seventh 3-pointer of the opening 20 minutes.
Duquesne also missed 10 consecutive shots late in the first quarter and nearly held the lead through the drought because George Washington missed three shots and turned the ball over three times before Kelli Prange tied it at 13-13 with a basket.
The Dukes led at halftime despite being outrebounded, 20-11, by the much taller Colonials, who had 10 turnovers by halftime and forced just two giveaways by the Dukes.
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