Coming off a quarterfinal win to New Hampshire, the Binghamton women’s basketball team battled Stony Brook for a spot in the America East (AE) championship game on Sunday. The Bearcats had trouble connecting offensively, and as a result, BU (22-9, 10-6 AE) had its lowest-scoring game of the season and was knocked out of the semifinals by the top-seeded Seawolves (28-3, 14-2 AE), 57-42.
“I’m proud of them,” said Binghamton head coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. “And unfortunately shots didn’t fall. They just didn’t fall. It was ugly. I mean, that was low for us.”
Binghamton is the highest-scoring team in the AE this season, but the team went just 17-for-53 from the floor and started the second half with just 16 points.
The Bearcats picked up slightly in the fourth quarter, scoring 17 points with contributions from senior guard Karlee Krchnavi, junior forward Olivia Ramil, sophomore forward Annie Ramil, senior guard Kai Moon and freshman guard Denai Bowman. Despite the surge in the final period, the Bearcats could not overcome the deficit, and the Seawolves walked away with the victory and a home championship game.
“One game does not define who you are as a team or how your season went,” Shapiro Ord said. “Unfortunately, tonight it was a tough one and our shots just weren’t falling. We just couldn’t string them up.”
Leading Binghamton in scoring were Moon and Olivia Ramil, who both had 11 points. Out of the 31 games played this season, Moon has scored in double digits in 29 of them and surpassed 600 points in the season with this game. Moon was named the AE Player of the Year, and she leads the conference with 608 points, 108 more than the next-highest scorer. She now has 1,476 career points.
“These last four years have been amazing,” Moon said. “I just wanted to see the floor in some way, and I got blessed to see 40 minutes for about four years, and I was incredibly lucky this last year. I didn’t know that this season was going to go the way it did. I was going to put in the work to make sure that I would be the best player I could be for my team.”
Olivia Ramil also had five rebounds and two blocks and is now fifth in the AE in blocks, right behind senior guard Carly Boland.
Olivia Ramil’s sister, Annie Ramil, also provided some points for BU, ending the game with eight points and five rebounds. After playing less than three minutes in the quarterfinal game against UNH before having to be taken off the court because of injury, Annie Ramil returned to the court and played 28 minutes in the game.
The combined efforts of Stony Brook sophomore guard Anastasia Warren, junior forward India Pagan and graduate student guard Kaela Hilaire helped SBU secure the win, as Warren had 18 points, Pagan had 14 and Hilaire had 11. There were questions entering the game as to whether Pagan would play, as she had missed the previous three games due to injury, and this was her first appearance since Feb. 23. She did not start, but played 25 minutes.
“I’m ready for any game,” Pagan said during a postgame press conference. “It’s the end of the season. I’m going to give all I have, everything that’s in the tank.”
While the team’s NCAA Tournament hopes have been dashed, the Bearcats are expected to be selected for the 2020 Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI). This would be Binghamton’s second-ever appearance in the WBI, and its second in three years.
“I’m very disappointed, obviously, but there’s still more basketball to be played,” Shapiro Ord said. “There’s one more tournament and we’re going to be in it.”