Holy Cross Wins Patriot League Championship

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Joe Calabro, GoLocalWorcester Sports Team

Malachi Alexander

The Holy Cross Crusaders have won the Patriot League Championship. The Crusaders defeated the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 59-56 on Wednesday night in Pennsylvania to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

See the five Takeaways Slideshow Below

Holy Cross wraps up their 6th Patriot League Championship, first since 2007, and advances to the big dance for the 13th time in program history.

Holding on

Prior to that, Holy Cross led by 10 points, 50-40, with five minutes to play before Lehigh went on a 14-2 run to get within one, 55-54 with 1:21 to go.

Malachi Alexander hit two free throws to give the Crusaders a three point lead back.

Lehigh cut it to one again, 57-56, with 33 seconds left to play in the game but would put Alexander back on the free throw line.

Alexander would again hit two free throws to give tghe Crusaders thier 59-56 lead.

On Lehigh's final possession, they got off four three-pointers but came up short on all of them as time expired.

The Crusaders are the first 9 seed to win the Patriot League Championship, winning 4 straight road games to do it.

The Crusaders did not win a road conference game all season.

Taking Early Control

Holy Cross led 5-4 with 12:49 left in the first half before ripping off a 15-2 run to take a commanding 20-6 lead with just over 6 minutes left in the half.

The Crusaders 1-3-1 zone forced Lehigh into 9 turnovers in the first half.

Holy Cross led Lehigh 25-14 at the half.

The Leaders

Holy Cross was led by Malachi Alexander who poured in 26 points on 7 of 10 shooting from the field, including 6 of 7 from three-point land.

Eric Green followed up with 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting from the field. Green missed the first half of the season with a knee injury.

Selection Sunday

The Crusaders will now wait for Sunday nigh and the NCAA selection show to see where they are seeded and who they are playing.

The selection show will be on CBS.

See the Five Takeaways Slideshow Below

Related Slideshow: 5 Takeaways From Holy Cross’ Patriot League Championship Win

Prev Next

Bracketology

According to the latest Bracketolog projections from CBS, Holy Cross will enter as a 16 seed and play in one of the First Four matchups against Fairleigh Dickenson.

The official brackets will be relased this Sunday night, March 13, on CBS.

Prev Next

Eric Green

Eric Green had a big game for Holy Cross netting 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting from the field in 35 minutes of action.

Green missed the first half of the season with a knee injury.

Prev Next

1-3-1

Coach Carmody's 1-3-1 zone continues to stymie offenses and it did so for the first half against Lehigh, only giving up 14 points in the half.

Through the first half of this game and the second half of the game against Army, Holy Cross only gave up 26 points.

Will be interesting to see how team X attacks it in the NCAA Tournament.

Prev Next

Malachi Alexander

Malachi Alexander led Holy Cross with on 7 of 10 shooting from the field including 6 of 7 from three-point land. Alexander made 4 straight free throws in the final minute to seal the Crusader win.

Alexander also grabbed 9 rebounds in the game.