The women's college summer basketball league made the transition into playoff mode last week. The results of the final regular-season games on Tuesday, July 18 determined the first-through-seventh seeds in the eight-team postseason tournament, and on Thursday the other two squads engaged in a play-in game to see who would round out the quarterfinal field.

Team Black (Jefferson University) reached an 8-0 record and claimed the top seed for the playoffs with a 72-41 win over Team Red (Chestnut Hill College), which finished in fourth place at 5-3. Red will open the playoffs against fifth-seed Team Pink (an alumni squad with a 4-4 record), which ended the regular season with a 73-49 victory against Arcadia University's Team Maroon (1-7)

Team Purple (West Chester University) eked out a 67-66 win against Team Kelly Green (a Division III combo team). Purple, third in the league with a 6-2 mark, will go right into another showdown with Kelly, which was seeded sixth with its 3-5 record. On Tuesday, Holy Family University's Team Sky Blue had a bye, already having wrapped up the second seed by achieving a record of 7-1. In the quarterfinals, they'll face Team Royal Blue (a mix of D-III athletes), which rose to a record of 2-6 with Tuesday's 56-61 victory over Team Sun.

Team Sun is a mixture of NCAA Division II and III players, including 2023 Germantown Academy graduate Abby Marino. Sun went 0-8 in the regular season, but in Thursday's play-in game for the eighth playoff berth, they defeated Team Maroon, 57-49, ending the season for the Arcadia ensemble. Marino netted six points on two three-pointers in this game; she'd scored 10 points in Tuesday's contest.

Rising CHC senior Lindsey Lane, a forward, had missed Team Red's two games the previous week, but she was back in action Tuesday, scoring her ball club's first basket of the evening to tie the count at 2-2. Junior Bri Rider scored for Red to make it 4-2, but Team Black soon went ahead and stayed there.

Four-and-a-half minutes in, two made free throws by freshman Tori Nigro gave the Jefferson group its first double-digit lead at 17-7. Near the end of the period, Team Black had Red doubled up at 24-12 before junior Sam Yencha's buzzer-beater ended the first quarter at 26-12.

The situation stabilized in the second period, with Black adding one point to its lead to set the halftime score at 43-28. The Jefferson ladies began to pull away again in the third quarter, and senior Morgan Robinson's lay-up, with less than three minutes elapsed, nudged Black's lead over 20 points, at 49-28.

Things didn't get any better for the CHC squad the rest of the way, as Team Black cruised to a 31-point victory. In double-figures for the winners were Cassie Murphy (13 points), Emily Spratt (12), Yencha (11), and Emily Keehfuss (10). Red had Avery White score 12 points while Lane added eight.