PHILADELPHIA (3/8/04) - Down 44-28 with 7:26 to play, the outlook didn't look good for the Hawk five in its Atlantic 10 Championship game with Temple. But Saint Joseph's staged a furious comeback, drawing within two points with 32 seconds to go. Unfortunately, the rally came up short in a 53-48 loss to its city rivals. Senior
Stephanie Graff had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds and classmate
Irina Krasnoshiok added 10 as both earned all-championship honors.
A back-and-forth first half resulted in a 23-19 TU lead at the half, but the Owls owned the majority of the second half. The Atlantic 10 East regular season champs went on a 10-0 run beginning at the 9:38 mark and sported a convincing 16-point led with a little over seven minutes remaining.
St. Joe's instituted a full-court press and began to chip away at the Temple lead. Four free throws from Graff and two more from sophomore
Maura McBryan brought the Hawks within 10 with 5:04 on the clock. After two Owl free throws, SJU scored the next eight points, five of which came from senior
Erin Brady, and sent the crowd of 2,002 at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse into a frenzy.
A Hawk turnover led to an easy Toni Belafonte layup, but SJU responded with two
Amra Mehmedic free throws and two straight layups from Graff to cut the Temple lead to 50-48 with 32 seconds to go. SJU was forced to foul and sent Christena Hamilton to the line, who connected on 1-of-2 to put the Cherry and White ahead by three at 51-48.
The Hawks ran a play to get Krasnoshiok open, but her contested three-pointer from the wing was off the mark. Temple's Ari Moore made two foul shots to seal the victory for Temple. Saint Joseph's shot 28.6% from the field and had 19 steals, eight from Brady.
Hamilton scored 14 points to lead TU. She was named to the all-tournament team along with Moore, Graff and Krasnoshiok. Candice Dupree was named the tournament's most outstanding player.
Saint Joseph's (20-10) must wait until Selection Sunday to find out if it will be rewarded with an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.