Holy Family Women's Hoops Readies For NCAA Tourney Opener

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- For the 11th time in program history, the Holy Family University women's basketball team has made it to the NCAA Division II Tournament.

The Tigers earned the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference's automatic bid to the tourney after putting together an impressive run to win the CACC Tournament. First, Holy Family went on the road to beat Bloomfield in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, they smothered the University of the

Sciences, 38-32, and then they capped things off by beating the host school, Philadelphia University, in the finals, 79-75. In that game the Tigers rallied from 10 points down with under four minutes left, finishing the contest on a 15-1 run.

With their 20-10 record, the Tigers are the #8 seed in the East Region and in the first-round on Friday they will get top-seed Adelphi University.

"We had our ups and downs early in the year and we are playing our best basketball here late in the season," Holy Family head coach Mark Miller tells KYW Newsradio. "So its been a good little run over the last three weeks for us, just trying to do the things that we do and get better every day. We've been able to put some good things together down the stretch. So my kids are excited."

Listen to the entire interview with Holy Family's Mark Miller:

Holy Family's last appearance in the NCAA Tournament came in 2013 when they made it to the regional semifinals.

Miller talks about what makes this year's team tick.

"For us, it starts on the defensive end," Miller says. "We've got to defend and rebound and take care of the basketball and if we do that I think we have a chance to be in every single game. We're a very balanced team, we don't have a superstar that every night going to be that person that every night's going to get you 16, 17 or 18 (points). We've been kind of saying that we've got 9 or 10 (players) that can give you 9 or 10 (points) every single night."

Holy Family holds opponents to just over 60 points a game and they have four players averaging double-figure points. Junior guard Erin Fenningham leads the way at 11.3 a game. Fenningham by the way had a career game in that CACC title game, pouring in 36 points in the win over Philly U.

The Tigers are familiar with Friday's first-round opponent, Adelphi. These two teams played in the regular season back on December 20th, Holy Family losing 80-70 up in Garden City, New York.

"They're a very good team, they're well-coached, a lot of different weapons, play in a tough conference (Northeast 10)," Miller says. "We played them great up there, a play here, a play there and we've got a chance. That's kind of the way it's been for us as of late, we've kind of hung around, we've kind of hung around and then we make a play here, a play there and good things happen."

The winner of Holy Family/Adelphi plays the winner of Stonehill and Queens in the second round.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.