Manhattan University Athletics

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – For the second year in a row, Brazil Harvey-Carr turned in a career performance in the MAAC Championship Semifinals, posting 27 points this afternoon, to help No. 6 Manhattan knock off the No. 2 Niagara Purple Eagles 81-68.

Manhattan is the lowest seed in MAAC history to advance to the MAAC Championship game on the women's side. They will be taking on the top-seeded Gaels out of Iona tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. This is also the second year in a row the Jaspers will take to the court under the bright lights of the championship game.

The team's 81 points are a season-high for the Green and White.

"I am so proud of this team. This is our third game in five days and I just really felt our girls were so locked in and they weren't worried about winning the game, they were worried about winning the next play," said head coach Heather Vulin following the game. "When Niagara made its runs, we were really able to keep our poise and start getting that separation at the end."

"An absolutely sensational performance by our freshman point guard Anne Bair. To be able to have a 7-1 assist-to-turnover ratio against the Hurricane was incredibly impressive."

Much like the Saint Peter's game to open their week in Atlantic City, Harvey-Carr got off a torrid start, connecting on five first-half triples, two in the first and three in the second quarter, with Anne Bair assisting on four of them. Thanks to seven first-quarter points from Harvey-Carr and seven from Petra Juric, the Jaspers took a 17-13 lead into the second quarter. In the second quarter, Niagara made their ground up and managed to take the lead into the halftime break, 39-37.

At the break, Harvey-Carr had turned in 17 points and the team was shooting a blistering 48 percent from the field and 75 percent from beyond the arc.

No strangers to entering the locker room down this week, it is safe to say Manhattan was not fazed in the slightest by the slim deficit. The Jaspers used a 10-2 spurt in the third quarter to create some space, making the score 51-45. Six of the final eight points of the quarter went to the Jaspers to send them into the final quarter with a 57-49 run. The final bucket came from Emily LaPointe going for the home-run ball off the inbound and Dee Dee Davis laid it in with two seconds remaining.
  The final quarter was a battle that fans in attendance will never forget. Niagara netted the first nine points of the quarter to take a one-point lead, 58-57. Narrie Dodson stepped up once again and scored two tough buckets to regain the lead.

With just over two minutes left, after three free throws by Niagara's Allyiah Parker, the lead was back down to one but it would be LaPointe on the passing end of a big bucket, finding Juric down low to grow the lead back to three and from there Manhattan would close out the game strong and celebrate at mid-court.

In an interview about Bair earlier in the year, Vulin was quoted as saying "I love Anne Bair," and today it was hard not to see why. The true freshman played like a battle-tested senior, finishing with a career-high eight points, four rebounds, seven assists, and drew eight fouls while committing none. All eight points came from the charity stripe. Bair also was the team's primary press breaker and she handled that role perfectly and was unfazed by the consistent pressure that comes with the Hurricane Defense. Juric turned in 18 points and eight boards.

"I think poise and compose was big today," said Bair when commenting on working against the Hurricane. "We played Niagara twice, so we knew this was their style of play and they are one of the top teams in the country in steals and forced turnovers. So it was really important that we stuck together, helped each other out, meet the passes, sealed to get open and did all the little things to put ourselves in the best place in this game."

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