Rhode Island women beat George Mason 53-51 for first Atlantic 10 Championship title

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GLEN ALLEN, Va. (AP) — Brooklyn Gray scored 16 points and Rhode Island beat George Mason 53-51 on Sunday for the Rams' first Atlantic 10 Championship Tournament title.

Top-seeded Rhode Island (28-4) will make just its second trip to the NCAA Tournament and the first since 1996. No. 2 seed George Mason (23-9) won the tournament last season.

Rhode Island led by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter, but Jada Brown hit a 3-pointer with 15.4 seconds left to pull George Mason to 51-48.

Gray added a pair of free throws with 8.9 seconds left before Mary Amoateng hit a 3 at the buzzer.

Gray made two 3-pointers and shot 8 of 8 from the free-throw line. She made six free throws and scored eight in the fourth quarter.

Rhode Island used a 15-9 third quarter to take a 39-34 lead into the fourth. Kennedy Harris hit a 3 to pull George Mason to 42-39, but the teams then went scoreless for nearly a four-minute stretch before layups from Gray and Sophia Vital stretched the Rhode Island lead to 46-39 with 1:06 left.

Albina Syla grabbed 10 rebounds to go with nine points for the Rams.

Harris scored 15 points to lead George Mason. Amoateng finished with 13 points and Zahirah Walton added 10.

The Rams made it to the final in 1984, 2003, and 2024. There hasn't been back-to-back champions in the A-10 tourney since George Washington in 2015-16.

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