Trinity Hardy, Army’s all-Patriot League senior guard, knows that at this point in the season, every game could be her last. Therefore, Hardy knows she has to leave it all on the floor to keep the season going.
On Thursday, Hardy, who scored 16 points, and her Black Knight teammates held off stingy Bucknell, 49-39, in a Patriot League semifinal game at Christl Arena.
Army (24-6), the No. 2 seed, will travel to top-seeded Lehigh on Sunday at noon with the winner getting an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.
Army last reached the league championship game in 2016 when the Black Knights knocked off Loyola, 69-51, to win the crown and advance to the NCAA tournament, where they lost to Syracuse in the first round.
Though the Black Knights hit only 32.6 percent of their field goals (15-for-46 from the field), they outrebounded the taller Bisons, 40-31, and, perhaps more importantly, use a pesky defense to hold Ashley Sofilkanich, the league’s player of the year, to just 13 points on 5-for-17 shooting from the field.
“At the end of the day, it is going to be my last game so I am going to leave it all on the line,” Hardy said. “The biggest thing I had all season is legacy. Legacy does not start with me or end with the team. It starts with the team and ends with the team. So being able to give energy to them. It is not just Trinity Hardy. It is Fiona Hastick, it is Reese Ericson, it is Kya Smith and Camryn Tade and it’s the other players.”
Hardy was helped by Ericson, her backcourt mate, who scored 12 points, and Hastick, who scored 10 points. Smith had nine rebounds.
“It just came down to hard work, talent and overall toughness over the other team,” added Hardy. “March is not about X’s and O’s anymore. At this point, you got to know how to execute and get stops. It just about how hard you willing to work and how tough you are to go hard. We are made for this moment, we know that.”
Ericson, a junior who made two 3-pointers, called it a “fantastic team effort” that made the difference.
“We have a lot of trust in each other,” she said. “We worked so hard for this, preparing since July. It is a really good feeling that the hard work is paying off and I love to be doing it with these people.”
