GLEN ALLEN, Va. -- A thrilling nail-bitter that went wire-to-wire saw the top-seed Richmond Spiders squeak out a 63-58 victory over the ninth-seeded Duquesne Dukes in Friday’s quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Women’s Basketball Championship.  

The Spiders maintained an early lead, saw it slip with 3:23 remaining then quickly recovered to seal Richmond’s fate into Saturday’s semifinals. Richmond will face the winner of Saint Joseph’s and Rhode Island’s quarterfinal at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Henrico Sports and Events Center.  

The win extends Richmond (27-5) winning streak to 17 games. 

“I think everybody is starting to see that it’s not just this fire-powered offense that needs to beat everybody by X number of points. And that’s fun, right?” Richmond coach Aaron Roussell said. “I didn’t think we were going to be able to kind of cut and move like we wanted to today. But we were able to grind it out.” 

Megan McConnell passed the ball to Andjela Matic, who banked in a 3-pointer and brought the Dukes within 54-52. Maggie Doogan committed an offensive turnover and Kiandra Browne’s shot knotted it at 54. Matic made a layup, which gave the Dukes their first lead since 9:46 in the first quarter.  

Alyssa Jimenez responded with a 3-pointer and regained the lead for Richmond. The Spiders outscored the Dukes 5-2 to seal the win.  

Three Spiders finished with double digits: Addie Budnik (15), Maggie Doogan (12) and Ally Sweeney (10). 

“I think we’re just a very composed group,” Budnik said. “We talked about that when we’re in the huddle before we went out there. We’re older. We have experience, we’ve been here before. So we just know that we’ve got to take a deep breath. They’re going to go on their run, but we’re also going to have ours in the end. So just staying composed, staying together.” 

The Spiders shot 44.2 percent from the field and 31 percent from 3-point range. Duquesne finished 39 percent from the field and 25.9 from beyond the arc.  

In February, the Spiders had a secure 23-point margin over the Dukes into the half. During Friday’s quarterfinals, the Spiders only led by one-possession with a 31-27 lead at the break.  

The Dukes (19-12) shot 39.3 percent from the field in the first half. And after allowing the Spiders to shoot 4 of 9 from the 3 in the first quarter, Duquesne didn’t allow a Richmond 3-pointer in the second quarter on seven Spider chances.  

“We tried to change some things when we played there and not do what we do – and that’s press on every make and miss and play the way that we played today,” Duquesne coach Dan Burt said of the Dukes’ adjustments for Friday’s quarterfinal.  

Browne paced the way for the Dukes with 18 points and added seven rebounds. Mackenzie Blackford scored 14 points.