Denison wins 2026 DIII women's basketball championship

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 (5'11''-F) 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 (5'4''-G) made a layup 12 seconds later, but the Lady Royals didn't score again. Kaci Kranson (5'11''-G) had 10 points all in the third quarter and nine rebounds for Scranton. Meghan Lamanna (5'5''-G) 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.
Courtesy of: espn.com