CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – No. 11 seed Columbia fell in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament to No. 6 seed West Virginia, 78-59, on Saturday afternoon at Carmichael Arena. The outright Ivy League champions conclude the season 24-7 overall.

Senior standouts Cecelia Collins and Kitty Henderson recorded 16 and 13 points, respectively, in the final game of their careers. Collins had six assists, four rebounds and a steal, while Henderson had nine rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block. Henderson finished the season with 150 assists, breaking Megan Griffith's Columbia record of 148 from the 2005-06 season. Her 494 career assists are the most in program history and rank No. 7 in Ivy League history.

The Mountaineers (25-7, 13-5 Big 12) led the entire way. After trailing by as many as 22 in the second half, the Lions managed to cut the margin to 15 in the third. Unfortunately, it never got any closer than that.

"West Virginia is a great team and a super unique team in the women's game. I think what they do, not a lot of teams do, right, and especially defensively," Coach Griffith said. "March Madness is who can make the other team the most uncomfortable, and I thought they did that successfully to start the game. You know, forcing 11 turnovers.

"We knew it was coming too, but honestly, like I said, this is what March is about. It's about getting this experience, but we didn't just come here to come here. That's a lesson. That's a really valuable lesson that the rest of our program has learned today and will continue to learn."

"Obviously, I'm really proud of these two. Our two seniors, Kitty and Cece, who literally gave this program everything they had, I'm going to miss them tremendously. I said this to them, but it's been a true honor to coach them. Really, really proud of them."

The loss comes two days after the Lions earned their first-ever March Madness victory, taking down fellow 11 seed Washington in the First Four, 63-60. Columbia came back from a 13-point deficit at halftime to win it.
 
As for Saturday, after an explosive 5:25 to open the game, West Virginia led 18-13 at the first media timeout. The Mountaineers started 8-of-10 from the field in that span. They later kept Columbia scoreless over the final 4:11 of the quarter, giving the Lions fits with their full-court press. Columbia turned it over 11 times in the frame but still hit enough shots to trail just 20-15 with less than two minutes left in the period.

WVU scored the final four points of the first quarter and broke off an 8-0 in the second to lead 32-17. At the 7:39 mark. Collins stopped the run with a mid-range jumper but the Mountaineers would lead by as many as 21. The lead was 46-29 at halftime with WVU shooting 60 percent from the floor.
 
JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison each had 16 points in the first 20 minutes for West Virginia. Collins led the Lions with 11 at the break.
 
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Weiss and Collins gave Columbia a brief spark in the third quarter. West Virginia still held a 16-point lead at the under-five timeout and led 63-45 after three quarters.
 
Down the stretch, Columbia could not cut into the deficit any further. The margin never slipped below 16 points. Quinerly and Harrison led West Virginia with 27 and 23 points, respectively.
 
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