SPARTANBURG, SC –  A baseline bucket by sophomore Leigha Dennison with 6.8 seconds left gave second-seeded Belmont Abbey College a 63-62 win over top-seeded and 21st-ranked Francis Marion University, Sunday afternoon (March 9) in the championship game of the Atlantic Casualty Insurance Conference Carolinas Women's Basketball Tournament.
 
Francis Marion drops to 23-6 and sees its 10-game winning streak snapped.  The Patriots will now await the announcement of the NCAA Division II Tournament field later Sunday night at 10:30 p.m.
 
Freshman point guard Kiara Croskey led FMU with 21 points, six rebounds, five steals, and three assists and was named to the All-Tournament Team.  Senior guard Kennedi Simmons came off the FMU bench and tallied 15 points, including a trio of three-pointers, and in the process surpassed the 1,000-point mark for her career that began at Winston-Salem State University.
 
Junior Trinity Adams added 10 points and senior forward Kiana Lee chipped in seven points and a team-high 10 rebounds.  Lee was also selected to the All-Tournament Team.
 
Dennison paced the Crusaders (25-5) with 17 points, while junior guard Riley James scored 16.
 
In contrast to the team's fast start in its semifinal win on Saturday, Francis Marion struggled in the early going on Sunday.  Belmont Abbey raced to a 14-3 advantage with 3:44 left in the opening quarter.  A bucket by Croskey stopped a 10-0 Crusader run, but Belmont Abbey then scored six straight to lead 20-5.  The margin stood at 24-9 at the end of the period.
 
A pull-up jumper by James early in the second quarter stretched the lead to 29-11.  A brief 9-2 spurt by FMU trimmed the deficit to 31-20 after a lay-in by Simmons.  Belmont Abbey led 36-23 at halftime.
 
The Patriots charged out of the locker room and opened the second half with a 10-2 run that included five points from Adams to cut the lead to 38-33 and forced a Belmont Abbey timeout.  The Crusaders responded with three straight baskets and pushed their lead to 11 points at 44-33.
 
A three-point play by Croskey cut the lead back to 48-43 with 2:19 left in the quarter.  The margin stood at eight (53-45) heading to the fourth quarter.
 
Croskey scored eight points and Simmons added a three-pointer from the top of the key that drew Francis Marion to within 57-56.  After a Crusader offensive foul at the other end, Adams hit a three-pointer from the right side, an attempt that hit the rim and bounced up and then in, to give the Patriots their first lead at 59-57 with 3:37 remaining in the game.  James tied the contest at 59-59 with a jumper at the 2:16 mark.
 
Lee, who moved past Brenda Cain and into 21st place on the Patriot career scoring list with 1,235 points, drained a three-pointer from the near the top of the key to regain the lead for FMU at 62-59 with 1:47 left.  Twenty seconds later, Dennison hit two free throws to make it a one-point contest at 62-61. 
 
Both squads missed shots on their ensuing possessions, before a held ball at midcourt gave the ball to Belmont Abbey with 16 ticks remaining.  Dennison then made her go-ahead shot.  Following an FMU time out that moved the ball to mid court, sophomore center Trinity Delaney missed a 15-foot jumper from the right elbow and the final horn sounded before the Patriots could get off another attempt.
 
For the game, Francis Marion shot 40.4 percent from the floor and was 9-of-15 at the foul line, while Belmont Abbey connected on 44.2 percent of its field goal attempts and was 16-of-18 at the free throw stripe.