EWING, N.J. - The TCNJ women's basketball team fell behind early and was never able to recover in its NJAC Championship matchup against Montclair State Saturday afternoon, falling 72-63 to the second-seeded Red Hawks in front of a packed Packer Hall.
 
Grace Kowalski, Jaclyn Feit and Arianna McCleod all finished with a team-high 15 points in the loss, with Amanda Baylock also chipping in a career-high 13 points off the bench. Feit added a team-high nine rebounds while Nina Branchizio dished out four assists to lead the Lions.
 
Saturday's Championship was all Montclair State from the tip, with the Red Hawks hitting each of their first four shots to jump out to a commanding 9-0 lead just 2:45 into the game. A Feit layup finally broke TCNJ's drought one possession later, but it was MSU keeping its foot on the gas with a banked triple from Alyssa Craigwell building the lead to 13 at 17-4.
 
Feit and Baylock would strike as part of a 6-3 run to end the frame, but after the Lions had outscored the Red Hawks by a combined 12 points in the opening quarter of the first two meetings, it was Montclair State taking a 20-10 advantage into the first break.
 
An 8-2 run – six of which came from McCleod – to start the second quarter trimmed the lead to four, but timely buckets from the visitors made it a 28-20 game midway through the frame. McCleod struck again for back-to-back buckets a minute later, with a Feit and-one conversion capping off a 7-0 burst to cut the deficit to just one before the Red Hawks got five straight from Olivia Vero as part of a quarter-closing 5-2 run to build the lead back to 33-29 at the half.
 
TCNJ had the lead down to two three minutes into the second half, but consecutive threes from Montclair State's Shannon Hughes quickly put out any Lions momentum and made it a 42-33 game. The Red Hawks continued to work through Vero, with the senior scoring six straight to make it a 13-point game before Branchizio's first triple of the game came at the buzzer to send TCNJ into the fourth down 54-44.
 
The Lions got within four on multiple occasions in the fourth quarter – it was a one possession game with four minutes to go after a Baylock floater – but timely triples from MSU's Alexis Strollo and Madison Marcotte were enough to hold off any late-game heroics, with the Red Hawks closing out the game at the free throw line en route to the 72-63 win.
 
FOR THE FOES

• Vero scored a game-high 24 points, adding 10 rebounds for her second straight double-double.
• Hughes added 13 points off the bench, going 3-5 from deep and provided excellent defense.
• Craigwell, who scored 10 in the first quarter, finished with 11 points and three blocks.
• Sophie Beneventine stuffed the stat sheet with five points, 10 rebounds and five assists.

STANDOUT LIONS

• Kowalski scored an efficient 15 points on 5-11 shooting, adding two steals.
• Feit paired her season-high 15 points and nine boards with three blocks.
• McCleod finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and two assists

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• TCNJ shot 35.8% (24-67) from the field and just 15.4% (4-26) from deep, marking the first time this season the Lions shot under 20% from behind the arc.
• Montclair State shot 44.2% (23-52) from the floor and 40.9% (9-22) from three.
• The Red Hawks held a narrow, 39-36 advantage on the glass.
• TCNJ won the battle in second-chance points (23-13) and points in the paint (38-22).
• MSU outscored the Lions in bench points, 20-15.

NOTES

• Branchizio ends the season ranked 13th in program history in points (1,137), 14th in assists (238) and is the program record holder for career 3-pointers made (274) and threes made in a single season (86).

• The Lions conclude their 2024-25 season with a record of 21-6, having won back-to-back NJAC regular season titles before falling in the conference championship.