Buffalo, NY-For the first 27 minutes it was a cross-town battle between Medaille and D'Youville. But a close game was broken open by the visitors in the second-half and the Medaille came away with a 71-53 win over the Spartans.

The good news came after the game. As a result of Mount Aloysius defeating Penn State Altoona 69-60, D'Youville has clinched a berth in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Tournament. It is the program's first appearance in the AMCC Tournament since joining the league in 2009-10. The last time D'Youville played in a season ending conference tournament was after the 08-09 campaign as members of the North Eastern Athletic Conference.

"It was our goal this season," said D'Youville Head coach Dan Glover. "It was what we have all worked for...an opportunity to play for a championship."

It looked early on that D'Youville would handle the clinching of a playoff spot on their own. The Spartans opened the game with a 6-0 run and held the lead for the first 8:20 of the game.

D'Youville lost the lead but pulled close at the end of the first-half with a bucket from Alexis Smith (Hamburg, NY/Hamburg) and a three-ball with five second to go from Bridget Andrews (Amherst, NY/Sacred Heart Academy).

Andrews would finish with a game-high 20 points, 18 coming from a career-high six three-point field goals. Smith was next for the Spartans with 18 points and was a perfect eight of eight from the free-throw line.

D'Youville would stay in range during the first few minutes of the second-half and found themselves down just three after a Casey Bartels (Massapequa, NY/Massapequa) layup made the score 43-40 with just over thirteen minutes to play.  

Then the game turned.

D'Youville made just one field-goal over the next eight minutes and the Spartans were outscored 23-4 over the next eight minutes.

"Can't turn the ball over that much in a close game" said Glover commenting on the second-half spurt from the visitors.

Jean-Ann Korona (Washingtonville, NY/Washingtonville) came off the bench and scored seven points and grab a team-high seven rebounds. Shannon Dougherty (West Seneca, NY/West Seneca West) had a team-high six assists.

Next for the Spartans is a home game against Penn State Altoona this Saturday (February 15) at 3:00 p.m. It is the team's annual Pink Game that will raise money and awareness for breast cancer research.