The St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball team came up short in its regular-season finale, a 65-58 East Coast Conference loss at Queens College. Bianca Kowgios dished 11 assists for the Lady Spartans, who open the ECC Tourney Wednesday at LIU-Post. STAC suffered its fourth straight defeat to fall to 13-15 overall and 9-9 in conference. Queens improved to 11-14, 8-10, and will travel to Bridgeport for the first round of the playoffs.

Queens wielded the hot hand early, with a Kristen Korzevinski three-pointer staking the hosts to an 18-8 lead after nine minutes of play. The Lady Spartans arrived with a vengeance, with Shpresa Liharevic hitting three straight buckets to cap a 12-0 run, putting STAC ahead for the first time at 20-18 just five minutes later. The visitors would finish the half with an 8-2 run, with an Ashley Motrechuk lay-up staking STAC to a 31-25 edge.

Motrechuk would hit a pair of free throws to equal the Lady Spartans' largest lead of the night at 37-29, six minutes into the final half. Five different Knights would then score in a 9-0 spurt, putting Queens back on top by one. The lead would change hands on several occasions, but Korzevinski would hit a basket and a pair of free throws to give the hosts their biggest margin at 56-48, and STAC would be unable to close the gap thereafter.

Shpresa Liharevic led the Lady Spartans with 21 points, Motrechuk added 13 and Kowgios had 10 to lead St. Thomas Aquinas. Bria Jackson set the pace for Queens with a game-high 27, while Korzevinski added 24.

Both teams have punched their tickets for the ECC playoff tournament, which starts on Wednesday night, March 6. The Lady Spartans, seeded fifth, will travel to the Pratt Recreation Center on Long Island to take on the #4 LIU-Post Lady Pioneers in a 7:00 pm start. Queens will take its #6 ranking to Connecticut to square off with #3 Bridgeport. The top two seeds - #1 Dowling and #2 NYIT - receive byes into the semi-finals, which they will host on Friday, March 8, against Wednesday's victors.