Women’s basketball drops first two contests
The Saint Joseph’s University women’s basketball team faced off against the Bucknell University Bison on Sunday, Nov. 13 for the first time in 10 years and the fourth time ever. The Hawks won the previous three match-ups, but fell to the Bison 64-61 before the final 4.9 seconds ran off the clock..
The game followed a rough loss to the Temple University Owls in the Hawks’ season opener.
The Hawks started strong, scoring on nine of their first 13 possessions. Sophomore Alyssa Monaghan opened the game with a step back three on the first possession and proceeded to convert her next four shot attempts. Monaghan’s 12 first quarter points led the Hawks to a 23-10 lead. With the exception of a shot at the buzzer at the end of the first quarter, Monaghan was 0-2 on field goal attempts for the rest of the game.
“We were trying to get her shots and they focused in on her a little bit,” Head Coach Cindy Griffin said. “I’ll tell you, their zone bothered us because they were really big at the wing spots. If you’re not getting the shot up top, and they were closing on us quick, and she couldn’t get it off. I thought maybe she passed up a couple, but other than that I thought that [Bucknell] did a very good job.”
At the end of the first half, the Hawks had only three turnovers, which was much better than Friday’s 12 first half turnovers.
“Alyssa’s obviously our point guard, so she’s more familiar with the flow of how we’re trying to play,” Griffin said. “We only had four turnovers for the game, so that was terrific.”
Additionally, Bucknell was 0-7 on three-point attempts following the first half. That has been something St. Joe’s struggled with, finishing last in the Atlantic 10 last season in 3-point field goal defense (151-for-430, .351).
Bucknell opened the second half with seven unanswered points to quickly cut the deficit to four. By the end of the third quarter, St. Joe’s just a two-point lead. After beginning the game shooting 10-16 (62.5 percent), the Hawks shot 6-28 (21.4 percent) in the middle two quarters.
The score remained close through the fourth quarter and was eventually tied with just over two minutes to play for the first time since the game was scoreless. With 48 seconds remaining, the Bison had possession, and were down just a point looking to take their first lead of the game.
Following a timeout, Bucknell’s Sune Swart was fouled on a layup attempt and converted both free throws to give her team a 60-59 lead. A missed layup on the Hawks’ end forced them to foul and stop the clock sending Bucknell’s Kyi English to the line where she would hit both foul shots. St. Joe’s junior Chelsea Woods scored from the low post with six seconds left, but the Hawks still trailed by a point.
St. Joe’s fouled about a second after the inbound and Bucknell’s Kaitlyn Slagus hit another two free throws for Bucknell.
The Hawks were outrebounded 49-27. Swart led the Bison in rebounding with 10 boards.
“They outrebounded us by 22 and obviously number 41 [Swart] is just a tremendous player,” Griffin said. “I think that [rebounding] was definitely the difference today.”
Junior Adashia Franklin led the Hawks in scoring with 18 points. Sophomore Jaryn Garner, Monaghan, and Woods each contributed double-digit points. In each of the Hawks’ first two games, they’ve had four players reach double digits in scoring, a feat they accomplished just four times all of last season.
The Hawks’ next game will be held at Iona University in New Rochelle, N.Y. on Wednesday, Nov. 16. They will then take on the University of Pennsylvania Quakers at the Palestra at 7 p.m on Nov. 22.
