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WILKES-BARRE — King’s joined DeSales on Tuesday as the only women’s teams in the MAC Freedom this season to have at least one win against every team.
The Monarchs fought hard to defeat Misericordia 74-68 and have clinched a berth in the conference tournament, where they will have a rematch with the Cougars in next week’s semifinals. Misericordia remains a game ahead in the standings, but the Monarchs can steal home court with a win Saturday and a Cougars loss.
“We have a lot of confidence, not every team has beaten every other team,” King’s senior Rebecca Prociak said. “It helps us for playoffs, to have the confidence that we can play with everyone.”
The final minutes of the game were tense. King’s held a narrow lead over the Cougars, 69-68. With time winding down on the shot clock, Emily Kriston used a screen from Prociak to get an open shot. After she hit it, the Monarchs forced a turnover on the inbound pass, getting the ball back and taking more time off the clock.
“We call her Em-Dog for a reason,” King’s coach Caitlin Hadzimichalis said. “She wants to get going and she wants to get after it. She had a lot of energy in the first half, but it was chaotic. She really reeled it in an turned into a run the show point guard for us.”
By the time the Cougars got the ball back, they were down by three with one minute left. They used a majority of the shot clock and attempted one too many passes. Samantha Rajza intercepted the last one and used her teammates to run 15 seconds off the clock, leaving just 18.5 left.
King’s used free throws to put the rest of the game away.
Emily Morano finished with 21 points off the bench for the Monarchs.
“We are fighting for playoff seeding, I just had to go in there and get after it,” Morano said. “We wanted to feed the hot hand and get the ball in the post. We came out on fire and with so much energy.”
Overall, the Monarchs finished shooting 48 percent from the field. Behind Morano, Mackenzie Yori had 18 points, Rajza had 15 and Prociak had 14 points, which helped her reach 1,500 for her career.
“It continues the momentum we’ve been building from the last three games,” Hadzimichalis said. “We had that slump in middle of the season and we talked about our best basketball being in front of us.”
“We have a lot of confidence, not every team has beaten every other team,” Prociak said. “It helps us for playoffs, to have the confidence that we can play with everyone.”
The Cougars performed well offensively, shooting 50 percent from the field. Tessa Zamolyi led the team with 20 points and 13 rebounds. Jordan Barth had 13 points but was in foul trouble most of the game, limiting her to just 23 minutes. Alyssa Bondi also had 13 points and Melina Santacroce had 10.
This is the second straight loss for the Cougars, the first time this season they have lost back-to-back games.