Smith College is ‘elite’ once again.

For the third consecutive season, the Pioneers women’s basketball team advanced to the Elite Eight – and are now one game away from a third straight Final Four – following a huge 53-47 victory over previously undefeated Bowdoin on the road in the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 on Friday night. A season ago, Smith traveled to Brunswick, Maine to face Bowdoin in the Elite Eight and won 52-47. Nearly one full year to the date later, the Pioneers returned to the Polar Bears’ home gym to hand them another postseason defeat by almost the exact same score.

It wasn’t pretty for much of the contest, but Smith executed in the third quarter and used an 18-8 advantage in the frame to pull ahead and stay there the rest of the way.

Smith (29-2) will play Gustavus Adolphus College (26-1), which won 71-58 over McMurry earlier on Friday, back in Maine on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

“We just grinded,” Pioneers head coach Lynn Hersey said. “It was a game that had some interesting runs for both teams. A lot of missed shots, but a lot of really great defense. You win in a variety of ways in the NCAA Tournament, and today was definitely a defensive battle. Proud of our team for pulling this one out, and looking forward to tomorrow.”

The first half witnessed poor shooting from both sides, but especially Smith as it only converted on 29 percent of its field goal attempts through 20 minutes of action to head into halftime down 22-20. That all changed in the third quarter thanks to Hannah Martin. The sophomore guard took the game over out of the break, scoring 10 straight points for the Pioneers to help jump them ahead 34-27 – their largest lead of the night at the time.

Martin was 0-for-3 in the first half, but made five field goals as part of her 12-point quarter that put Smith in front 38-30 headed to the fourth.

“I was definitely frustrated in the first half,” Martin said. “I had a few turnovers, a few missed layups. I take a lot of pride in leading my team, not only just in playmaking but in scoring. I know that’s something I can bring to the table. So at halftime, coach had a conversation with me and kind of just sparked a fire. I knew that if we wanted to win I needed to step up.”

From a head-coaching perspective, Hersey felt that Martin had a favorable matchup given her rounded skill set as a guard. But Martin had only taken three shots despite playing the majority of the first two quarters.

Something had to change, and it did.

“We had a conversation in the locker room about how we needed to move the ball, get touches to different players and capitalize on certain matchups,” Hersey said. “Hannah, between her craft and her speed, she’s a lot to handle. She just did a really great job of taking advantage of her opportunities and getting hot for us. It settled our group.”

The teams traded blows for the first five minutes of the fourth until a quick 5-0 run – sparked by a Jane Loo triple and capped with an Ally Landau mid-range jumper – catapulted Smith up 45-35 with just over five minutes remaining. From there it was just a matter of the Pioneers hanging on.

They didn’t make a field goal the rest of the way, but they leaned on their terrific defense and clutch free-throw shooting (8-for-10 in the final minute) to send them through to a national quarterfinal. Bowdoin (29-1) shot 32 percent for the game and scored their second-fewest points (47) of the season.

“We had to focus on transition defense, that was a big part of being able to hold them to the point total that we thought we would need to hold them to,” Hersey said. “Our team executed on that front. They had four transition points the whole game. We did some things on ball screens that I thought slowed them down and created different shots for them… It was a really thoughtful game in terms of how our players approached the game plan and the execution from who we needed to focus on from the Bowdoin side.”