Kaylee Murphy had team highs of 22 points and 17 rebounds, but top-seeded Christopher Newport used a big third-quarter run to pull ahead and eventually held off UC Santa Cruz for a 71-64 win in the Coast-To-Coast Tournament final.
Christopher Newport (24-0) earned the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.

The Captains had an early 7-2 lead after three minutes, but the Banana Slugs responded with a 21-12 run the rest of the quarter to lead 23-19 after ten minutes. The game stayed close the second quarter with Christopher Newport managing a 33-32 lead at the break. However, the Captains opened the third quarter with an 11-0 run in the first 1:53. Murphy, Amanda Inserra and Ashley Kowack responded with back-to-back-to-back layups to get UC Santa Cruz to within six at 44-38. However, the Captains went on a 17-9 run the rest of the quarter to make it 61-47 at the end of the third, their biggest lead of the day.
The Banana Slugs battled back in the fourth. Murphy went 1-2 from the line that made it 69-64 with 32.6 seconds left, but the Captains didn't allow another good shot and made a pair of free throws to close out the game.

The Banana Slugs shot 22-61 (36.1%) on field goals for the game but were just 4-18 from three. They outrebounded the Captains 51-36. Inserra had 15 points and eight rebounds while Kowack scored 11. Murphy passed Molly Davisson for eighth on the school career scoring list. Anaya Simmons and Sondra Fan each scored 19 to lead the Captains. Simmons was named Tournament MVP while Murphy and Inserra made the All-Tournament team.
The Banana Slugs finish the regular season 16-4, a school-record for win percentage. They will find out Monday if the make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large.