WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – At the end of the first half, the Elon University women's basketball team jogged into the visitor's locker room down double digits. The Phoenix shot 3-16 in the second quarter, mirroring the team's shooting performance in the fourth quarter against the Northeastern Huskies two days prior.
With a first round bye at stake with a loss, the Elon coaches knew they were running out of time to execute. They made a change, plugging redshirt junior guard Kamryn Doty into the second half starting lineup. Doty, who played 23 minutes at Northeastern, had missed all five of her three-point attempts. The last two were open looks in the final minute of the six point loss.
"I'm not going to lie, it was really frustrating," Doty said. "But something I've been working on internally is just having a short term memory, forgetting the play before. If I'm shooting a shot thinking about the last play, I'm automatically going to miss."
With the way the second half in Monmouth went, it's not clear if Doty remembers going to Boston. She matched her career-high in threes made and set a career-high with 14 points. The rest of the Phoenix also stuffed the basket, shooting above 50% from the field in both the third and fourth quarter. Elon's 49 second half points are also a season high.
Early in the third quarter, Doty connected from deep for her first triple of the night, an open look from the corner, which cut the deficit to seven.
"When the first one went in, after missing all of them in the Northeastern game, I felt like it gave me a little spark," Doty said. "My confidence came back a little bit. And the best energy is having extra confidence. Once I hit the first one, it kind of just went from there and picked up our defensive energy as well."
Doty's second three came two minutes later, making the dwindling Monmouth lead only four points.
Two minutes after that, the Phoenix tied the game. With three minutes and 18 seconds left in the quarter, Doty relocated to the top of the key for a go-ahead three, her third triple of the third frame.
By the time Doty cashed her final, fourth ticket from downtown, the Elon lead had ballooned to 15.
Elon outscored Monmouth 49-23 in the second half, winning 70-54. The Phoenix finished the regular season with a 9-9 record in conference play and enter the tournament as the No. 6 seed with a first round bye.
"It gives us a lot of momentum," Doty said. "The conference is wide open."
The 2025 CAA Championship will take Elon to Washington D.C. this week. The Phoenix awaits the winner of No. 11 Towson and No. 14 Northeastern, who will play on Wednesday, March 12. Elon will take on the winner on Thursday, March 13 at 8:30 p.m.
"It's a new season, it's a fresh start. We know that. We know what we're capable of, and the championship is a matter of executing and producing the way we know we can," Doty said. "We have to leave it all on the floor regardless, or else our season is going to end. We believe in each other, and our chemistry has gotten better throughout the season."
'Rising Phoenix' is a student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on X (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Chase Strawser at cstrawser@elon.edu.
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