SAN ANTONIO – No. 4/5 Trinity University Women's Basketball heads to Medford, Massachusetts and the campus of No. 18/21 Tufts University for the 2023 NCAA III Women's Basketball Championship Third Round against the host Jumbos Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
 
The Tigers (28-1) are accompanied in the Boston metropolitan area by No. 1/1 Christopher Newport University (VA) and RV/No. 24 Wartburg College (IA)—the 5:00 p.m. ET matchup. Trinity faced the top-ranked Captains in last season's NCAA III third round and advanced past the then-undefeated squad to battle the weekend's host, Amherst College (MA).
 
Last weekend, Trinity came away from its own NCAA III San Antonio Regional after a pair of double-digit victories over University of Texas-Dallas, 79-62, and No. 14/12 Hardin-Simmons University, 88-69.
 
The Tigers dominated their two matchups in the SCAC Championship the previous weekend to open postseason play, defeating Texas Lutheran University, 77-62, in Saturday's semifinal followed by Sunday's 64-54 victory in the league finale over Colorado College. Both contests saw Trinity log 20-plus point leads in the fourth quarter.
 
No. 4/5 Women's Basketball will battle No. 18/21 Tufts at 7:30 p.m. ET Friday night. With a victory, Trinity will face either the top-ranked Captains or the 24^th-ranked Knights on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET.
 
NCAA III End of Regular-Season Rankings
While the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) was the poll that denied the Tigers the nation's top ranking in January, the NCAA III coaches have Trinity listed higher than the latest D3hoops.com poll as the program landed fourth and fifth, respectively.
 
Christopher Newport again enters the NCAA III sectional rounds as the nation's top-ranked team in both polls as the Captains have lost only once since the start of the 2021-22 season: to Trinity, 76-71, on March 11, 2022.
 
Tufts and Wartburg appear further down the list as the Jumbos have the 18^th spot from the nation's coaches, and 21^st from D3hoops.com while the Knights register 24^th from NCAA III's media poll and are receiving votes from the WBCA.
 
Season-to-Date…
Trinity recorded the longest undefeated start in program history this season, knocking off each of its first 20 opponents. During that streak, the Tigers claimed four contests against nationally ranked opponents (then-No. 18 Hardin-Simmons, twice; then-No. 12 University of Mary Hardin-Baylor; then-No. 14 University of Puget Sound).
 
The first of the undefeated streak, the 2022-23 road-opener at Birmingham-Southern College, marked the largest single-game point total in school history with a 140-87 victory on November 11. Had it not been for No. 6/7 Hope College's (MI) 143-57 home-opener against Geneva College (PA) that finished less than an hour before the TU-BSC contest, Trinity's 140 points would have been the most scored by a NCAA III team against another NCAA III team in NCAA history.
 
The Birmingham-Southern matchup was also an emphatic "welcome back" for seniors Addie Putnam (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Xavier) and Claire Hale (San Antonio, Texas / Brandeis) as they combined for 46 points on 20-of-21 from the field after missing the entirety of the 2021-22 season due to injury. Putnam's 11-for-11 outing set a new single-game mark for field goal percentage, besting Hailey Coleman's 10-for-10 outing in Trinity's previous highest-scoring game: 122-75 over Schreiner University, February 8, 2022.
 
On December 2, Head Coach Cameron Hill claimed the throne as Trinity's all-time winningest coach in a 100-42 victory at Centenary College. The 1999 graduate of Trinity passed Becky Guyer—the leader of the 2002-03 NCAA III Championship team—at 229 victories and has since elevated to a 247-47 career record, all in his 11 seasons with the Tigers. Hill has led Trinity to 20-plus victories in each of the 10 full seasons during his tenure to go with a 10-2 record in the abbreviated 2020-21 campaign.
 
Senior Ashlyn Milton (Amarillo, Texas / Amarillo) became the program's 19th player to reach 1,000 career points in the 78-69 victory over Puget Sound on December 21 which was also the contest that netted her season-high in scoring at 25 points, and was the fourth of her nine 20-point outings in 2022-23.
 
On January 7, Milton claimed the all-time record for made three-pointers in a career in the 79-60 victory at Austin College. She has since become the first to make 200-plus from beyond the arc and has made 34 more than the previous record-holder: Hannah Coley '15, 190.
 
Junior Maggie Robbins (Plano, Texas / Plano) posted Trinity's first triple-double since the 2009-10 campaign with her 12 points, 12 assists and 10 steals in the 96-38 home victory over University of St. Thomas on January 21. Robbins has collected double-digit steals in both matchups with the Celts this season (Dec. 4) and has claimed four of the 10 best games in the category in program history, three of which have come during the 2022-23 campaign (Feb. 25; Texas Lutheran, SCAC Semifinal).
 
Just over a week later, 19 D3hoops.com voters placed Trinity in the No. 1 spot in its weekly national rankings, the most in the regular season for the Tigers in the poll's history (since 1999-00).
 
Trinity advanced to its second consecutive NCAA III third round contest for the first time in program history after last weekend's victorious home regional. The Tigers will play in the program's fifth overall NCAA III third rounder this weekend, all of which have occurred since the 2003 national-championship team logged the first NCAA III Sectional appearance.
 
Updating the Record Book…
Milton has amassed the program record in made three-pointers (227) and has nearly a one-percent lead in three-point percentage (39.5) to go with 1,231 points (12th all-time), 12.6 points per game (10th all-time), 189 steals (ninth all-time), and 448 made field goals (12th all-time).
 
Milton also holds the two best seasons in program history in made three-pointers as her mark of 72 this season trails only her 78 longballs from the 2021-22 season and is 10 more than any other season in program history. Milton appears three times in the top-16 as she collected 47 makes in her rookie campaign.
 
Robbins became the new program record-holder for single-season steals last weekend as she eclipsed Jenna Smith '05 to sit at 128 takeaways for 2022-23. The junior added her fifth entry in Trinity's single-game steals category with nine against the Comets last Friday. This season alone, Robbins has collected eight or more steals four times including the UT-Dallas matchup: Feb. 25 v. Texas Lutheran (eight), Jan. 21 v. University of St. Thomas (10) and Dec. 4 at St. Thomas (10).
 
The Tiger point guard is also tied for Danielle Hubenak's 2008-09 single-season assists record at 133 dimes this season, as she has logged the first season in program history in which one player recorded over 100 steals and assists simultaneously. Based on her 2022-23 pace, Robbins is in line to compete in 2023-24 for the career steals mark at Trinity (Smith, 341) and comfortably take the runner-up spot in assists as Hubenak left behind a total of 434 in the category, still 182 ahead of the Plano, Texas-native.
 
Senior Maggie Shipley (Arlington, Va. / Yorktown) became the 16^th player in program history to score 30 points in a game in Saturday's victory over Hardin-Simmons, logging one of the top 30 scoring games in the history of Trinity Women's Basketball.
 
She crossed over the 1,000-point plateau in her collegiate career against UT-Dallas last weekend, joining Milton as the two Tigers to have reached said territory. Of her 1,044 career points, 834 have been scored in a Trinity uniform which lands her 26^th in program history despite playing only two full seasons—and the abbreviated, 12-game 2020-21 campaign—in San Antonio. Shipley made a large contribution to her scoring efforts last season as her 447 points from 2021-22 ranks 15^th all-time for a single season.
 
Sophomore Josie Napoli (Beaverton, Ore. / Valley Catholic) aims to mark just the second time in program history that two players reached 100 assists in the same season as she has 96 to go along with Robbins's 133. The first occurrence came in Hubenak's 2008-09 133-assist sophomore season when then-rookie Ali Marzella '12 logged 108 dimes.
 
Coach Hill will seek to become just the second coach in the history of Trinity Basketball—men's or women's—to reach 250 career victories as the leader of the Tigers this weekend as he enters Friday's contest with a 249-47 (.841) career record in his 11^th season. Pat Cunningham (1999-20) amassed 362 victories in his 21 seasons behind the wheel for the Trinity men's program.
 
Preview: Shippin' Up to Boston
Trinity enters the weekend as NCAA III's leader in total points (2,487; tied with Birmingham-Southern College) and assists per game (19.1) and ranks sixth or higher in five other categories: steals per game (third; 18.1), turnovers forced per game (fourth; 30.59), scoring offense (fourth; 85.8), scoring margin (sixth; 25.7) and turnover margin (sixth; 11.9).
 
Robbins leads the Tigers in the individual ranks as she sits in the top five in NCAA III in steals both in total (third; 128) and per game (fourth; 4.41). The junior's 133 assists on the season ranks 20^th in NCAA III.
 
While Robbins handles ball control, Milton ranks 12^th nationally with her 41.1-percent rate from three-point range and is 20^th in total makes (72) despite ranking just 83^rd in the country in total attempts (175).
 
Milton, Shipley and Napoli all average double-digits in scoring this season—13.6, 12.4 and 11.0 per game, respectively—though Putnam (9.9 ppg) and Robbins (9.1) are also near the mark themselves.
 

• Shipley has posted 13 double-digit outings this season but has only logged five starts since the start of December. The senior has a pair of 20-point games (Feb. 4 at Colorado College; Jan. 6 at University of Dallas) to go along with last weekend's 30-burger.
• Napoli has 14 double-digit outings to her record this season including back-to-back 20-point games at Texas Lutheran (Jan. 13; 23 points) and at Southwestern University (Jan. 14; 24 points). Her career-high from her rookie season at Pacific Lutheran University (25 points; Feb. 4, 2022, at Willamette University) has yet to be broken in a Trinity uniform.
• Putnam is runner-up to Milton's 21 double-digit efforts with 16 of her own this season while also leading the Tigers in rebounding (5.3 per game) and field goal percentage (55.1). Putnam has three double-doubles this season with two in the last two regular-season weekends (Feb. 11 v. Austin College; Feb. 18 v. Southwestern).
• Robbins has posted 14 double-digit scoring games herself, including a 20-point outburst against LeTourneau University on November 27, while averaging 4.6 assists, 4.4 steals and 4.3 rebounds per game.

 
Last season, Trinity experienced the Spirit of Massachusetts [https://youtu.be/YU0q1ztAemw] as it visited Amherst College in the 2022 NCAA III Sectionals where the Tigers took down previously-unbeaten Christopher Newport, 76-71, before falling to the host Mammoths, 79-68.
 
On the Jumbos: Trinity and Tufts will mark the programs' first-ever meeting Friday night as the Jumbos resume hosting responsibilities from their Medford Regional last weekend that featured victories over United States Merchant Marine Academy (NY), 72-57, and Skidmore College (NY), 59-50.
 
Tufts is led by New England Small College Athletic Conference Player of the Year, Maggie Russell. The junior registers all over the NCAA III statistical chart as she is top-20 in both total points (18^th, 523) and total rebounds (19^th; 299), averaging a double-double (19.4 points, 11.1 rebounds) this season.
 
The Jumbos also feature a prominent long-range shooter in All-NESCAC second-teamer Sofia Gonzalez. The sophomore is just two spots behind Milton in NCAA III this season in three-point percentage (14^th; 40.3 percent) and has one more make than the Trinity senior (18^th; 73).
 
Head Coach Jill Pace is in her fourth season with the reins of the Tufts program with a record of 101-15 (.871) thus far, earning the title of NESCAC Coach of the Year for the second time in her tenure.
 
One Game at a Time…
If Trinity were to advance past this weekend's host, the Tigers will battle the victor of Christopher Newport and Wartburg from Friday night's first contest, also a first-ever meeting.
 
Trinity has faced each program only once historically, with last season's bout against the Captains marking the only meeting between the Tigers and Christopher Newport. Trinity hosted Wartburg on November 23, 1997, a 64-63 victory.
 
On the Horizon…
If No. 4/5 Trinity Women's Basketball escapes the 2023 NCAA III Women's Basketball Medford Sectional this weekend, the championship tournament heads to Hartford, Connecticut, and the campus of Trinity College for the semifinals. The winner of this weekend's Medford Sectional would battle the winner of the sectional pod hosted less than 20 miles away by No. 10/13 Babson College (MA).
 
The 2023 NCAA III Women's Basketball Championship will be played April 1 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas as part of an all-encompassing weekend alongside the NCAA II championship game and the NCAA I Final Four.