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rival Youngstown State after a second-half rally to finish the season with a 22-6 mark. Troy State defeated Youngstown for the title and will represent the Mid-Con in the women's tournament meeting Virginia.

UB opened the tournament on Thursday as Brenna Doty scored a game-high 19 points and point guard Catherine Jacob had 17 points and eight assists to defeat the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 74-58, in the quarterfinal round.

Doty and Jacob combined for seven three-point field goals as the Royals shot 8-of-18 from beyond the arc in the game. The Royals pulled away from a 27-22 lead with 5:16 left in the first half by outscoring the Kangaroos 16-2 to close the half. Doty and Jacob combined for 11 of those 16 points as UB built the lead to as many as 24 points in the second half (65-41) to cruise to the victory.

Charissa Gardner added 10 points for Buffalo and Alicia Kollmorgen added eight points and 10 rebounds.

"I felt that I had to take the open shots when I had them and they were doubling down on the big people inside and that created more opportunities for me," said Jacob.

"I still think we can get the ball inside a little bit more than we did this evening," said Buffalo coach Sal Buscaglia, "but we have so much confidence in our perimeter game that if the shot's there we're certainly going to take it.

"We asked Catherine to do more scoring after her freshman year and to become more of a lead guard than just a point guard, where she'd have more capabilities of scoring and I think that really helps Brenna," said Buscaglia.

In a semifinal rematch of last year's Mid-Continent Conference Tournament title game, Youngstown State edged UB 54-53 to end the Royals' season at 22-6. The Lady Penguins have now made it to the Mid-Con championship game for the third straight year.

After an early 2-2 tie, the Lady Penguins seized the momentum and went up by 15, 32-17, on a Shannon Beach three-pointer going into halftime. The homestanding Royals took control for most of the second half, forcing Youngstown State into eight turnovers in the first nine minutes.

A Doty three-pointer pulled Buffalo to 42-41 with 8:10 remaining. The Lady Penguins went up by four, 51-47, on a Caroline McCombs three-pointer at the 3:02 mark.

The Royals seized the momentum again on consecutive baskets by Kim Coon and LaToya Crumpton to tie the game 51-51 with 1:46 left. McCombs broke the tie with another three-pointer from the right side with 1:12 left. Doty hit a running jumper to pull Buffalo to within one, but Crumpton (14 points) missed a shot with :03 left before the ball went out of bounds off of Youngstown with :01 left.

Buffalo inbounded the ball to Doty but her fallaway shot came after the buzzer as Youngstown advanced to its third straight final. Beach led Youngstown with 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Liz Hauger added 14 and McCombs 10 for the winners. Gardner added 13 points and Doty 12 for the Royals.

"The first look was for LaToya to set a screen for Brenna and then roll off of it to the basket and I told Kim that if you have LaToya right from the out of bounds pass, get it to her because she was having such a great game. Unfortunately, she caught it a little too far under the basket."

"We knew that they would come back on us because they're an excellent team," said Youngstown's Beach, the tournament MVP last year. "But I think we composed ourselves and played great in-your-face defense the last few possessions."

The loss proved to be the final game in the stellar career of Doty, who leaves UB as the school's all-time leading scorer with 1,703 points. Doty will compete in the national three-point shootout at the Men's NCAA Final Four Championship in Indianapolis later this month.

WRESTLING
The Bulls wrestling squad finished a disappointing fourth at last weekend's East Coast Wrestling Association meet at Bucknell University. UB scored 52 points to place behind Rider (89), which took its second straight title. Boston University (61) and Hofstra (52 1/2) were second and third.

UB qualified one wrestler to represent the Bulls March 20-22 at the NCAA Championships in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Jason Wartinger was selected at 118 pounds as an at-large qualifier, marking his third appearance in the NCAAs. Wartinger was defeated 5-2 in the finals of the 118-pound class by John Carvalheira of Rider.

John Stutzman at 150 and Eric Gross at 167 were selected as alternates for the NCAAs. Stutzman was pinned at 1:44 of his final match against Boston University's Dave Leonardo, who was selected as the meet's outstanding wrestler. Gorss lost a 10-4 decision to Rider's Chad Liott in the finals of his weight class.

­ Ted Wasko, Sports Information Office

PHOTOS BY DON HEUPEL