Cooch, Taute help Denison women beat Scranton 55-41 to win program’s first D-III national title

SALEM, Va. (AP) — Abby Cooch scored 18 points, Ada Taute added 15 points and 10 rebounds, and Denison beat Scranton 55-41 on Saturday to win the program’s first Division III national championship.

Denison (30-2), which has won six games in a row, extended the program’s single-season wins record.

Anelly Mad-toingué grabbed 16 rebounds to go with eight points and three blocks for the Big Red.

Scranton (32-1) beat NYU, which had won back-to-back national titles, 60-52 in the semifinals to snap the Violets’ 91-game win streak — the second-longest streak of its kind in NCAA history — and advance to the championship game for the first time since 1985. UConn women’s basketball won a record 111 straight at the Division I level.

Elizabeth Bennett made a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 9:03 left in the game but Cooch and Taute answered with back-to-back 3s to spark a 14-0 run to take a 50-39 lead with 3:20 remaining. Kaeli Romanowski made a layup 12 seconds later, but the Lady Royals didn’t score again.

Kaci Kranson had 10 points — all in the third quarter — and nine rebounds for Scranton. Meghan Lamanna also scored 10 points and Romanowski had a career-high 17 rebounds to go with nine points. Kranson has Landmark Conference-record 2,002 career points, which ranks second in program history behind Jennifer Nish (2,178 points from 1993-97).

Denison made just 8 of 38 (21%) from the field, 2 of 17 from behind the arc, in the first half but limited the Lady Royals to 11% (4 of 37) shooting, 2 of 19 from 3-point range. Scranton went 0 for 17 from the field and was outscored 8-1 in the second quarter.

The Lady Royals outscored Denison 23-14 in the third quarter to take a 34-33 lead into the fourth.

Scranton, which went into the game No. 2 nationally in scoring offense (80.4 per game), had its lowest-scoring game this season.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP mobile app). AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-baseketball