AVE MARIA, Fla.- The Ave Maria University women's basketball program had waited more than five years to play a postseason game at home.
It was worth the wait for the Gyrenes, who advanced to the semifinals of the 2024 Sun Conference Tournament with a 67-52 victory over Warner at the Tom Golisano Field House. The Gyrenes head to the final four in the league for the third consecutive season, winning in the quarterfinal round on the road in both 2022 and 2023.
In the first home postseason game for anyone on the roster, the Gyrenes came out of the gates hot. The Gyrenes jumped out to two ten point leads in the opening 10 minutes, holding advantages of 15-5 and 17-7. Warner did end the quarter with a 6-2 run to cut the Gyrene lead down to six, but Ave Maria's lead would not be erased fully for the entirety of the contest,
The pace for both teams slowed in the second quarter, with Ave Maria outscoring the Royals by a 12-9 margin. Both teams were in the 20s from the field, with Ave Maria at 25 percent (6-for-24) and Warner at 21.4 percent (3-for-14). Warner was able to trim the AMU lead down to three with 4:25 remaining, but the Gyrenes finished the quarter on a 6-0 run to take a nine-point lead, 31-22, into the halftime break.
Ave Maria essentially put the game away in the third quarter, pushing their lead into the double digits. Warner climbed to within five points early in the quarter, cutting the Gyrene lead to 33-28 with eight minutes to play in the frame. Ave Maria responded with a 21-7 run, getting the lead up to 19 points in the final minute of the third. Although an and-one cut the lead to 16 before the quarter was over, AMU still had a comfortable lead going to the fourth.
Warner outscored the Gyrenes by a point in the fourth quarter, but the majority of those points came with the game basically decided - Ave Maria led by 22 points with six minutes remaining before Warner ended the game on a 10-3 run.
Maria Kuhlman made an early case for inclusion on the Sun Conference All-Tournament Team, posting a double-double in her first postseason game in an AMU uniform. Kuhlman scored a game-high 20 points and pulled down eleven rebounds. Also in double figures for the Gyrenes were Casey Humphrey with eleven points and Gianna Santacroce with ten.
Awaiting the Gyrenes in the semifinals is a familiar foe in more ways than one - the Keiser University Seahawks. In addition to two games already this season - a split - the teams have met in each of the past two Sun Conference Tournaments, with a fifth-seeded Gyrene team knocking off a fourth-seeded Keiser team both seasons. A third-seeded AMU team will look to make it three in a row against the second-seeded Seahawks on Friday, with tipoff scheduled for 7:00 pm at The Furnace on the Southeastern University campus in Lakeland.
