Women's Basketball

King's College 81, Delaware Valley College 64
Aggies To Travel To DeSales For Freedom Conference Semifinals

WILKES-BARRE (PA) - King's College jumped out to a 25-5 lead and never looked back as the Lady Monarchs closed the regular season with an 81-64 victory over visiting Delaware Valley College in a Freedom Conference game.

The loss dropped the Aggies to 13-12 overall, 7-5 and tied with FDU-Florham for third place in the conference. However, the tiebreaker favored FDU-Florham for the third spot and a trip to King's (14-11, 8-4) in the upcoming playoffs thanks to a split in its series with first-place DeSales University. As a result, Delaware Valley will be the fourth seed and travel 25th-ranked DeSales for a Freedom Conference semifinal contest on Wednesday, February 27 (6:00 p.m.). The playoff berth is the sixth for the Aggies in the last eight years.

Delaware Valley could have sealed second place and a home playoff game with a win on Saturday. However, it faced a difficult task in not only traveling to King's, but on Senior Day and to play against a team looking for revenge after blowing a 17-point, second-half lead in a 64-62 loss to the Aggies in Doylestown earlier this season.

The Lady Monarchs struck early and often, especially Kaityln Fiorino. She scored 16 points in the opening nine minutes as King's sprinted out to a 25-5 advantage. Fiorino finished the half with 20 points, one less than Delaware Valley's total in the 47-21 stanza. King's shot 56.2% from the field while their defense held Delaware Valley to 4-for-25 shooting (16.0%) and forced 11 turnovers.

It was a foul plagued second half as the teams combined to go to the foul line 45 times. Delaware Valley outscored the Lady Monarchs, 43-34, but was unable to get closer than 14 points and that came with 3:02 remaining in the contest.

Fiorino, a junior, ended the contest with 30 points. Kaitlyn Malshefksi and Jenna Palumbo also hit double digits for the King's with 15 and 12 points respectively.

Senior center Brooke Dittmar had a career afternoon for the Aggies as she poured in 25 points and grabbed 21 rebounds. Most of her points came from the foul line where she was 15-for-16 and was just one shy of tying the school record for free throws made in a game. Fifteen of Dittmar's rebounds came on the offensive end and she moved into sixth place on the all-time list with 614 total rebounds.

Fellow senior Moira Donohue, who earlier in the week became Delaware Valley's all-time leader in 3-pointers, drained four from downtown against King's and broke the school's single-season mark in the process. Donohue has now connected on 74 treys, surpassing All-American Alisa DiBonaventura's total of 72 from the 2000-01 campaign. She finished the game with 12 points.