DELAWARE, Ohio – Like many games this season, it was a slow start for the No. 15 Washington University in St. Louis women's basketball team on Friday afternoon. However, the Bears found a fourth-quarter surge to pull away and pick up a win over SUNY Geneseo in the First Round of the 2026 NCAA Div. III Tournament.
The Bears picked up their 20th win of the season for the first time since the 2018-19 season and improved to 20-6. The Knights concluded their season with a 20-9 record.
Four Bears reached double figures in scoring, led by junior
Alyssa Hughes who finished with a game-high 19 points. Classmate
Sidney Rogers added 14 points, while juniors
Lexy Harris and
Sydney Starks each scored 10 points.
Harris nearly had a double-double as she finished with a game-high nine rebounds, including five offensive boards. Both Rogers and senior
Jordan Rich finished the contest with four steals each.
Geneseo got things started in the first quarter, scoring the first four points of the game. The Bears got on the scoreboard on a free throw by Harris at 7:58. WashU tied the game, 4-4, with a three from Rich at 6:48. After the Knights got an offensive rebound and a made tip-in shot by Grace Galgano at 6:26, Hughes made a quick play down the court and hit a three at 6:15, giving WashU its first lead of the contest.
The response by Geneseo took a minute to find its way through the rim, but a three by Eva Elliot gave the Knights the lead again, and they kept it for the rest of the quarter. Geneseo saw their lead grow to as many as four, but a layup from junior
Amelia Rosin with 17 seconds left on the clock tied the game at 17-17 heading into the second quarter.
Once again, the Knights gathered a four-point lead to start the second period, but the Bears chipped away and retook the lead with a three from Hughes at 5:29 remaining in the half, 23-22. Back-to-back jumpers from sophomore
Ava Blagojevich and Rich put the Bears up by five with 4:07 left on the clock.
The team from New York trimmed their deficit down to three with a jumper by Kathleen Birmingham at 3:04, 30-27, but the WashU defense stymied the Knights for the rest of the half while Rogers hit a jumper at 2:14, as WashU took a 32-27 lead into the locker room.
It took nearly two minutes before the Bears added to their score to start the second half. In the meantime, Geneseo hit a pair of layups to cut the lead down to one, 32-31, at 8:37. A three from Hughes at 7:58 and another at 6:49 saw WashU take a 38-33 lead. A jumper from Rogers at 6:03 gave the Bears their biggest lead up to that point, 40-33.
The final five minutes of the third quarter saw the teams trade jumpers, three-pointers, and free throws, with the Knights slowly chipping away and trimming the lead down to just two with a layup by Galgano with 21 seconds left in the period, 47-45.
The start of the fourth quarter was a reversal of fortune for Geneseo as WashU started off with the first six points of the period and held the Knights scoreless until a layup just over three and a half minutes into the final period. By that point, the Bears held a 53-47 lead.
The teams then traded free throws, with Hughes putting WashU up by nine for the first time with a pair of made charity-stripe points at 4:30, 57-48. However, the lead did not last long at nine as a three from Rich at 3:41 put the Bears up by double digits for the first time in the game, 60-49.
A three from Rogers at 1:33 and a rebound and made tip-in by Starks with 41 seconds left saw WashU lead by its biggest margin at 14. A last-second layup by the Knights trimmed it back down to 12 with the final score being 65-53.
The Bears scored 25 points off 21 Geneseo turnovers, while the Knights were only able to score three points off the 16 WashU turnovers in the contest. After leading in rebounds for most of the contest, the Knights fell behind and saw WashU lead 31-28 in rebounding, with the Bears scoring 12 points off second-chance opportunities.
WashU advances to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 and will play the winner of Ohio Wesleyan and DeSales on Saturday, March 7, at 7:15 p.m. ET.
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