Garden City, N.Y. -- Using stifling defense to hold the NYIT Bears to 20 points below their season average, the Adelphi University women's basketball team started its NCAA Division II Championship campaign on a high note, as the top seeds dispatched the No. 8 seeds, 64-47, inside the Center for Recreation and Sport on Friday night.

"As a player, I was a scorer," said Head Coach Missy Traversi after her first NCAA Tournament win. "Now, as a coach, I understand the value of defense, and I try to pass that along to the players. Without defense, without stops, without relentless rebounding, you do not have a chance long-term. They have completely married themselves to defense and rebounding, and tonight was just another example of that."

The Panthers (27-4) were led once again by senior forward Sierra Clark, who scored a game-high 23 points and pulled down 15 rebounds for her 21st double-double of the season -- a stat that leads the nation. Joining her in double figures was Calli Balfour with 19 points on 8-13 shooting, as she just missed a double-double with nine boards. Helping the Panthers accrue a 46-25 margin on the glass -- including a 24-7 margin in the second half -- was Natalie Fekula, who pulled down a career-high 10 misses in just 16 minutes of action off the bench, also chipping in a block and five points from the free throw line.

"Coach [Traversi] came into the season saying, 'Defense, rebound, title,'" said Balfour. "We've really adjusted to that well. We have game goals, and a lot of them are defensive. In the first half, we didn't rebound as well, and we [wanted to] step up defensively [in the second half], score and get more stops." 

The two teams largely traded scoring buckets over the first period, with neither side able to wrestle a lead larger than three, as the Bears saw themselves ahead by a point, 14-13 at the close of the first period. ECC Rookie of the Year Margaret Knollmeyer recorded six of her 17 points in the first period for the Bears (18-12), and seven of her 12 total rebounds.

Adelphi's defense, which entered the night as the sixth-best scoring defense in the country, clamped down in the second period, allowing just nine points while the Panthers scored 19 to turn the game on its head. An 11-2 scoring run, in which Fekula converted for all her scoring at the line, turn an 18-15 deficit into a 26-20 lead for the home team over four-plus minutes, and Sierra Schrader knocked down a three on the half's final possession off a dish from Niajah Morgan to give the Panthers a nine-point edge at the break, 32-23.

"We went into the locker room at halftime [talking about] how we were giving up too many easy buckets," Clark said. "In the second half, we came out and gave everything."

Added Traversi: "One of the biggest adjustments we made in the second half was boxing out [Knollmeyer] -- she was having a tremendous game and we were letting her go around our backs and [we] weren't putting a body on her. We made a couple of changes with some personnel, and we boxed her out."

Clark and Balfour combined for Adelphi's first eight points of the third to expand the lead to double figures, one that stood nearly for the duration. Twice did the Bears cut the deficit back to nine, but seven of the last nine points for Adelphi, capped by a Balfour trey, earned the Brown and Gold a 15-point cushion headed to the finale, which was more than enough to hold off the Bears in the fourth.

Adelphi will face No. 5 seeded Molloy College, who knocked off Caldwell 60-52 in the final game of Friday's play at 7:30 pm on Saturday. Adelphi defeated their Long Island rivals, 66-61, in the regular season on Nov. 30.

NOTES
- Adelphi wins its first NCAA Tournament game inside the CRS, having lost its only previous contest in the tournament on home court to Holy Family University in the 2014-15 season.  

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About Adelphi Athletics:
Adelphi University joined the Northeast-10 Conference in the fall of 2009 and in the past seven seasons, has collected 21 regular season conference titles, 25 tournament championships, 29 individual crowns and captured the Northeast-10 Presidents' Cup three times (2013, 2014, and 2016), while winning five NCAA Division II National Championships.

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