Eastern U. Women's Hoops Ready For D3 NCAA Tourney Debut

By Matt Leon

It has been quite the season for the Eastern University women's basketball team that calls St. Davids, on the Main Line, home.

The Eagles 22-5 record includes wins over quality teams like Cabrini and Williams and a victory over defending national champion FDU-Florham, which came when FDU-Florham was ranked #1 in the country and it snapped the Devils 53-game winning streak.

All this has led to Eastern getting into the Division III NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. They will travel to NYU to play Amherst College in the first round on Friday night.

Eastern University Women's Basketball team finds out they made the NCAA Tournament. from Eastern University Athletics on Vimeo.

The Eagles got an at-large berth in the tournament, after falling to FDU-Florham in the championship game of the Freedom Conference.

"It's definitely exciting," Eastern head coach Nate Davis tells KYW Newsradio. "It's the first time in program history to have this opportunity. Honestly, being an at-large bid, or Pool C in Division III the way they call it, is pretty exciting. They only pick 20 teams around the country based on their body of work throughout the year. There's 44 automatic bids and that leaves only 20 spots left in the 64-team field. To be one of those 20 teams that they looked at the body of work and said that we deserved to be in there feels pretty special."

Listen to Nate Davis with KYW's Matt Leon:

Davis, who was named Coach of the Year in the Freedom Conference this season, says he felt like he had a good team coming into the 2014-15 season, but he says it was crystallized for him in mid-December.

"We went to Scranton and we lost to the University of Scranton and then we turned around the next day and lost to Stockton," Davis says. "Had one day off, traveled to Puerto Rico and then played the #10 team in the country at the time, Williams College. To turn around and beat Williams down there after having a rough two days up at Scranton, against two teams that were good and obviously both NCAA Tournament teams too, but to turn around after a long trip and beat Williams, I really felt like, at that point, this team really could have the ability to make a good run throughout the year."

Eastern is led by the Freedom Conference Player of the year in senior forward Meghan Nowak. She averages 20.3 points and 9.7 rebounds a game. Sophomore forward Emily Lavin pitches in 13.2 points, 9.5 rebounds and an impressive 3.5 blocks a night while senior guard Gina DiDomenico averages 11.5 points per game while shooting 39% from three.

The Eagles will face a tough challenge in this first round match-up as they get an Amherst team that brings a 23-3 record into the tournament and is a perennial power in the New England Small College Athletic Conference.

"They bring a lot of tradition to the table," Davis says. "They've won a national championship. Their coach (G.P. Gromacki), who has been there 8 years has won a national championship in the time he's been there (2011). They went to (five) straight final fours. So they bring a lot of tradition and experience in the NCAA Tournament and that alone right there is worth a good chunk of advantage when it comes to our game against them."

However, Davis says his team will be ready for the challenge come tip-off.

"We're still in that process of looking at Amherst and looking at what they bring to the table," Davis says. "What their strengths are, what potential weaknesses do they have and we're going to look to certainly exploit those things and do the best we can."

The winner of Eastern and Amherst will play the winner of NYU and Virginia Wesleyan in the second round on Saturday.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.