DUDLEY, Mass.  3/7/09 - The fourth seeded Keene State College women's basketball team saw its season come to end with a 58-53 loss to top seed Nichols College in a semifinal game of the ECAC Division III New England tournament in Dudley, Mass on Saturday night.

The Owls finish their season with a 21-8 record, their second best mark since moving to Division III in the 1997-98 season.  Nichols College (25-4) advances to the championship game where it will face second seed WPI.   The Engineers moved on to the finals with a 52-43 semifinal victory over sixth seed Emerson College.

The Bison were led by sophomore forward Jessica Nelson (North Providence, R.I.) who finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. Also scoring in double digits for Nichols was sophomore Michele Guerin (Chicopee, Mass.), who added 14 points and six rebounds off the bench, and sophomore guard Ashley Robidoux (Milford, Mass.), who chipped in with 12 points.

Junior forward Nicole Simmler (Oxford, Mass.) paced Keene State with a double-double, netting 10 points to go with 10 rebounds, while junior guard Kristin Degou (Newburyport, Mass.) added 12 points. Freshman guard Courtney Cirillo (Windsor Locks, Conn.) chipped in with 10 points and nine rebounds. Playing in her final game for the Owls, senior point guard Michele Boudreau (Readsboro, Vt.) finished with just five points, but had three steals to break the KSC career record (267). 

The Owls couldn't overcome a bad night shooting the ball. "We struggled all night from the field," said KSC Coach Keith Boucher.  "When you hold a team in the 50s, you're playing good defense, but you have to put the ball in the basket.  People who usually do that for us didn't come through tonight."

Both teams struggled from the field throughout the first half.  The first points of the game didn't go up on the scoreboard until almost three minutes into the game. A jumper by Lyndsey Bennett (No. Brookfield, Mass.) gave Nichols a 10-7 lead at the midway point of the stanza.

A pair of Jen Cleaveland (Newington, Conn.) free throws with 6:38 left in the half put the Owls up by three, 13-10, but Nichols put together a 7-0 run before Keene State called a time out to regroup. The Owls then sank a pair of three-pointers, first from Degou and then from Sarah Laudano (North Haven, Conn.) to knot the game again, 19-19.

Nichols answered back with a pair of threes - one from Alena Jasinski (Canton, Conn.) and another from Guerin - amidst an 8-4 run to carry a 27-23 lead into the locker room.

The Bison held the Owls to just six points in the opening seven minutes of the second frame while putting up 11 points, including a pair of treys from Robidoux, who finished 3-for-6 on the night from beyond the arc.

Nichols led by as many as 12 points at the 11:48 mark, but a 7-0 Owls run capped by a Simmler three-pointer brought Keene State back within five at 7:40.

The Bison pushed ahead again to a 10-point margin before the Owls again used the long ball to get within four with 1:57 remaining. The Bison hit six of eight free throws down the stretch to push ahead by eight, but a Cirillo three-pointer at the buzzer cut the final to 58-53.

"You don't want to end a season this way, but it just wasn't in the cards for us tonight," Boucher said. "I'm sure the returning members of the team will benefit from this experience."

The Bison shot 32% from three-point land and 38% overall on the night, while Keene State was 26.5% from three-point range, taking 34 of its 63 total field goal attempts from beyond the arc. The Bison held a slim rebounding advantage at 41-38.