Abby Cooch and Denison have been unstoppable so far, and the Big Red need just one more win to become national champions. Photo by Brian Bishop, d3photography.com

By Riley Zayas
The Scoop on D3 Women’s Hoops

It's a matchup of new versus old. Of an emerging national contender and a traditional powerhouse. Of a team that has never been here before, and a team that has endured a multitude of season-ending heartbreaks on its path to getting back here again.

Either way, history will be made when the final buzzer sounds on Saturday afternoon in Salem. 

Denison takes on Scranton for the 2026 national championship inside Roanoke College’s Cregger Center at 4 p.m. ET, a first-time meeting between two programs that have taken different routes to get to the Tournament finale.

• Updated NCAA Tournament bracket
• Semifinal recap: And then there were two
• All-Region awards | All-Americans (Announced Saturday at 11 a.m. ET)
• More 2026 NCAA Tournament coverage: Men | Women

After eight trips to the national semifinals without reaching the championship game – the last coming in 2019 – Scranton is 40 minutes away from its first national championship since the Royals defeated the College of New Rochelle in 1985.

On the other side, Denison is enjoying a run few outside Granville, Ohio saw coming when the season tipped off four months ago. The Big Red are in the national final for the first time ever, having already set the program record for wins in a season, highest national ranking, and deepest playoff run.

Scranton is trying to follow in the footsteps of the team it just vanquished in Thursday’s national semifinals. Three seasons ago, New York University ended Transylvania’s long winning streak by knocking the defending national champions out of the Tournament in the national semifinals, and then the Violets won their second ever national title less than 48 hours later. Now the Lady Royals have a chance to follow up their streak-snapping victory with a national championship of their own.

Scranton has been No. 2 in the D3hoops.com Top 25 all season long, from the preseason poll to the final ranking at the end of the regular season, separating itself as NYU’s prime challenger. After dominating the Landmark Conference schedule to the tune of a 40.8-point margin of victory, and following four sizable NCAA Tournament wins at home, the Lady Royals got their shot at the top-ranked Violets on Thursday night, and they made it count. 

Keyed by balanced shot-making and hard-nosed rebounding, Scranton rose to the occasion in what will go down as one of the biggest wins in a program history full of them, defeating NYU 60-52 and ending the Violets’ Division III best 91-game winning streak. Speaking of records, Scranton picked its 90th NCAA Tournament victory, the most of any Division III program.

Faced with a defense intent on forcing turnovers, the Lady Royals were even better, coming up with 12 steals. Battling the UAA’s No. 1 rebounding team, Scranton controlled the glass in a sizable +13 margin. And when it came to offensive consistency, the Landmark champions had three scorers in double figures, even with All-American Kaci Kranson held to just five points. 

“We made it a point in the beginning to obviously work hard, but also take time to soak it all in, because not everyone gets this kind of opportunity,” said Scranton’s Meghan Lamanna, who had 18 points against NYU. “I think we all did that. It was super fun.”

Earlier that evening, Denison continued its meteoric rise under head coach Maureen Hirt who has led the Big Red from a 15-11 campaign a year ago to a program-best 29-2 mark.

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Denison head coach Maureen Hirt is one of seven people to be named first-team all-region as a player and receive Regional Coach of the Year honors. Photo by Brian Bishop, d3photography.com

Unranked to begin 2025-26, and trotting out a starting lineup composed of three juniors, a sophomore, and a first-year, Denison hasn’t missed a beat in March. Despite being upset by DePauw in the NCAC semifinals, the Big Red has been a determined — and especially confident — unit from the time the bracket was revealed. 

“We wanted to really soak this in, and feel it,” Hirt said after Denison’s first-round 82-47 win over Southern Virginia. “We talked a lot this week about just being present; being present with each other and enjoying the moment, seeing the banners hanging up in our gym, wearing these NCAA patches. And just not taking it for granted.”

They have lived that mentality out in their historic run, knocking out No. 24 Trine, No. 13 John Carroll, and No. 3 Washington & Lee on the road to Salem. And upon arrival Thursday night, the Big Red just kept rolling. With a 20-2 game-opening run against UW-Oshkosh, Denison pressured the Titan ballhandlers relentlessly, shot the ball with tremendous confidence, and smoothly moved up and down the court in an 81-62 wire-to-wire win that saw their dominant lead never dip below 16 points over the final three quarters. 

“If you’re looking down the stat line, you’re looking at six, seven, eight kids that all stepped up,” Hirt said afterwards. “I think that’s been our differentiator all year. You can try to shut down one or two people, but other people step up. Our depth is really special.” 

The Big Red turns its focus to Scranton, set to face a Top 4 opponent in NPI for the third consecutive game. Denison is 2-0 in those games already, having displayed a certain level of big-game confidence that is not phased by the opponent, the crowd, or the magnitude of the moment. They are reaching new peaks, and doing it with unmatched cohesion

“We knew going into it, we have full confidence in each other and we play for each other,” Denison junior guard Violet Mitchell said. “I think that speaks for itself.” 

That's evident in Dension’s fast-paced style, one that forces its fair share of turnovers, which are then most often followed by point guard Abby Cooch pushing the ball upcourt in a fast-break opportunity. Averaging 10.4 fast-break points per game, the Big Red is a threat in the open court, especially once the ball gets ahead of the retreating defense. 

“Once we get that rebound or if they score, we’re pushing it,” Ada Taute, Denison’s leading scorer at 13.9 points per game, said Thursday of the keys in beating Oshkosh. 

But even when they do not score in transition, instead opting to run halfcourt offense, Denison goes fast. It is a prime reason why they have eclipsed the 80-point mark three times in five tournament games to this point, moving the ball quickly around the perimeter as well as inside to 6-foot-3 center Anelly Mad-toingué. The Big Red is shooting 43.4 percent from the field in this tournament, including an exceptional 38.5 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. 

Denison’s offensive confidence is high coming off a semifinal performance in which the Big Red found in-rhythm shots early and seldom ran into a scoring drought, connecting on 50 percent of its field-goal attempts for only the second time this season. Shooting 9-of-18 on 3-pointers certainly added the quick separation from UW-Oshkosh, which allowed just 48 points per game all season before nearly yielding in the first half against Denison. Brooke Toigo accounted for one-third of those off the bench, and Taute and Adelyn Moore each added two more, displaying the sort of offensive balance that Denison aims to carry into Saturday. 

“We’re 18 people strong,” Taute said. “Knowing we can rely on anyone at any time, if they shut one or two people down, that’s okay, because we have three other people on the court ready to catch and shoot with confidence.”

But Scranton won’t be fazed by the Big Red’s offensive power. Not as the No. 1-ranked team in the country in defensive efficiency. The Lady Royals held a similarly up-tempo NYU squad to a season-low 52 points on Thursday night, forcing the Violets into difficult shots and a 28.4 percent mark from the field. But that is nothing new for head coach Ben O’Brien’s squad, who has tallied 61 steals through five tournament games and boasts the No. 1 scoring defense in the country, allowing just 42.9 points per game. 

For as much as Kaeli Romanowski contributes offensively as the point guard of an offense averaging 20.1 assists per game, it has been the senior’s defensive awareness that really stands out for the Lady Royals. A lock-down defender who will find herself matched up with Denison’s top ballhandlers on Saturday, Romanowski tallied five steals against NYU and has the fourth-most steals in Division III this season, with 124. 

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Now that Kaeli Romanowski and Scranton have advanced past NYU, can the Lady Royals take the final step to the national championship? Photo by Brian Bishop, d3photography.com

“We definitely pride ourselves on defense and keeping ourselves composed when we’re creating chaos on the defensive end,” Romanowski said Thursday night. “We try our best to make them shoot over us and not have easier shots. Making them work for every single shot that they’re taking is a critical part in what we’re trying to do.” 

For as steady as Scranton is defensively, Denison has proven it is more than capable of keeping pace when it comes to that end of the floor. While the scoring garnered much of the attention in the Big Red’s 20-2 run on Thursday, each of those successful offensive trips was matched by consistent stops, holding the Titans to just three made shots in their first 19 attempts. 

The leading factor in that sort of high-caliber defensive performance? The Big Red’s interior presence. Denison has blocked 42 shots in this tournament, a number that doesn’t even fully capture the amount of shots at the rim significantly altered by Mad-toingué and Morgan Kress in these high-stakes March matchups. In fact, Mad-toingué has 22 of those 42 blocks, raising her single-season total to 88, the sixth-most in Denison history.

If it comes down to a battle in the paint, and there is certainly a chance that it will, both squads are comfortable in that sort of contest. Denison scored 40 of its 82 points on Thursday in the paint, and controlled the boards with a +13 rebound margin, with nine of those rebounds coming from Taute and another eight from Mad-toingué. 

Scranton, too, takes pride in asserting its will on the glass, as the Lady Royals did against NYU. They largely get the job done by committee, with five different players averaging at least 4.0 rebounds per game. As for scoring from short-range, eight of Scranton’s first 17 points on Thursday came in the paint, with Elizabeth Bennett leading the effort inside. 

Of course, in between those scores around the rim, both Lamanna and Kranson knocked down threes, illustrating just how dynamic Scranton’s offense is. The Lady Royals head into Saturday with four players averaging double figure points per game, led by Kranson’s 17.9. A four-year starter who grew up in Scranton and came into the program in O’Brien’s first season as head coach, Kranson is living out a dream as she leads the Lady Royals into a national title game. A versatile go-getter with the ball in her hands, Kranson scored at least 10 points in 21 consecutive games before NYU held her to a quiet five points on Thursday night. 

But as O’Brien noted postgame, that revealed just how many ways Scranton can beat a defense. Kranson selflessly passed up contested shots for open ones for teammates over the course of her 23 minutes, and despite her being limited in the scoring column, the Lady Royal offense had no issue getting around the NYU defenders, shooting 40.7 percent. 

“Kaci draws a lot of attention, but what has made this team special this season is we have a lot of other weapons that are out there,” O’Brien said. “Kaci is smart enough and wise enough to understand, ‘Hey, if I’m drawing all this attention, somebody on my team has to be open.’ She’s done that all year.” 

After back-to-back seasons of watching NYU and Smith battle it out for the national title, this edition of the championship game is certainly a change of pace. Although no Division III program has as many Tournament wins as Scranton, the Lady Royals are on the cusp of reaching a mountaintop not seen since the Tournament was still 32 teams and only four years old. The school that Scranton defeated for its first national championship no longer exists. Denison has seemingly come out of nowhere to find itself four quarters away from going from “unranked” to “national champ” in the span of only a few months. 

Just as it is for their players, this has been the first national semifinal experience for both head coaches. Neither is looking to head home empty-handed. 40 minutes remain of the season, and the Lady Royals and Big Red alike are collectively ready to tip-off one more time in the Roanoke Valley. 

“We just have to continue to play Denison women’s basketball for 40 minutes,” Hirt said. “We’re enjoying the moment. The meals together, the bus rides, the dance parties. We’re just going to soak it all in. They’ve earned the right to play on Saturday.” 

“It’s the same message we’ve been delivering and talking amongst each other about all season,” O’Brien added, looking ahead to Saturday. “It’s next play mentality and next play speed, one play at a time, giving everything that we have for 40 minutes.” 

More than four decades after Mike Strong led Scranton to its first national championship, Ben O'Brien is one win away from leading the Lady Royals to their second. Photo by Brian Bishop, d3photography.com