LATROBE, Pa. (Dec. 4) – In a rematch of the 2021 Presidents' Athletic Conference championship game, visiting Washington & Jefferson edged Saint Vincent 54-52 in overtime in a back-and-forth defensive battle in the Robert S. Carey Student Center.

Trailing by 8 points at halftime, the Bearcats (2-5, 1-2 PAC) came all the way back to take a 47-44 lead with 43 seconds left in the fourth quarter, when Ella Marconi cashed in on a traditional 3-point play. On the ensuing trip down the court, W&J (5-2, 2-0 PAC) returned the favor, using an and-one of its own to tie the game at 47 with 23 seconds left. After the Bearcats missed the potential game-winner at the buzzer, the Presidents scored 7 of the 12 points in the extra session to escape with the 2-point win.

In the defensive slugfest, the Presidents won despite shooting just 29% from the field over the 45-minute affair, while the Bearcats managed just a 35% mark. The Bearcats held a healthy 41-30 advantage in rebounding, but the hosts were done in by 29 turnovers that led directly to 26 W&J points.

Marconi tallied her third double-double of the season with 14 points and 12 rebounds, while also blocking a game-high 4 shots, while Taylor Geer added 10 points for SVC and Lizzie Bender 9. Autumn Fennell scored 8 points for the Bearcats, going 3-for-3 from the field, 2-for-2 from long range and 2-for-2 from the free throw line.

The game was tight from the start, with three lead changes and two ties over the first four minutes. After Emily Cavacini's driving layup tied the game at 7-all with 3:58 left in the first quarter, the Presidents answered with five straight points to open up a 12-7 advantage with just under 2 minutes left. Fennell closed out the quarter with her first three of the afternoon to cut the W&J lead to 12-10 after the game's opening 10 minutes.

W&J scored the first four points of the second quarter to open up a 6-point lead, but the Bearcats quickly answered right back with 7 unanswered points in a 50-second span to gain a 17-16 lead on a Geer layup with 6:46 to go in the half. The Bearcats then went cold and the Presidents gained the momentum, ending the half on a 13-4 run to take a 29-21 halftime lead.

The Presidents scored the first basket of the second half to open up a 10-point advantage, before the Bearcats gradually chipped away. A driving layup by Alana Winkler pulled SVC to within six, 31-25, with 8:37 left in the quarter, before Fennell's second trey of the day followed by a Bender basket in the paint brought the Bearcats to within 31-30 with 5:25 left. The Presidents answered with a 5-point spurt to push the lead back to six, before Cavacini closed the quarter with a pair of free throws to bring the Bearcats to within four at 36-32.

After trading baskets in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, neither team would score for nearly four minutes, as they combined for four turnovers and four missed shots over the span. Cavacini broke the drought with a long three-pointer with 5:19 remaining, before Geer cashed in on a three-point play to tie the game at 40 with 4:25 left in regulation. Bender answered a W&J bucket with another layup to tie it at 44 with 2:18 to go, and after several scoreless possessions, Marconi's three-point play with 44 seconds to go gave SVC its first lead since the fourth minute of the second quarter. The advantage was short-lived, with the Presidents' Adalynn Cherry answering with a three-point play with 23 seconds left, and Cavacini's jumper at the buzzer was blocked to send the game into overtime.

The extra session opened with a prolonged scoring drought, with W&J scoring the first points on a layup with 2:50 left to go in front 49-47. After an SVC turnover, the Presidents connected on two free throws to take a 51-47 advantage with 1:16 left, before Fennell gave the Bearcats their first points of the overtime period on a layup with 1:12 to go. A pair of W&J foul shots again made it a four-point game with 48 seconds left, before Marconi converted on another three-point play to pull the Bearcats to within one, 53-52, with 38 seconds to go.

The Bearcats were forced to foul on the ensuing trip, with Cherry making one of two attempts to up the lead to 54-52 with 20 seconds remaining. Coming out of a timeout with 10 seconds left, the Bearcats had three attempts at a tying bucket but they each rimmed out, and the Presidents escaped with the win.
Piper Morningstar had 17 points to lead W&J, while Aleena McDaniel came off the bench to score 11 points and grab a team-best 8 boards. Kamryn Lach finished with a game-high 6 steals for the Presidents.

The Bearcats will now have a six-day layoff before returning to action on Friday, Dec. 10, when they host crosstown rival Pitt-Greensburg in a 6 p.m. non-conference battle in the Robert S. Carey Center.