The women’s basketball team came up one basket short against undefeated Emmanuel College on Saturday, losing for the second time in two weeks to the Saints 72-70. The loss drops the Cards to 2-2 while Emmanuel improved to 5-0.
The Cards looked ready to avenge their earlier loss when they jumped out to a 15-9 lead to start the game. Emmanuel recovered quickly though, draining six of eight first-half three-pointers en route to building a nine-point advantage at the half.
Emmanuel continued to control play at the start of the second half, improving its lead to 57-44 with just 8:18 remaining in the contest. The Cards picked up their offense the rest of the way, but Emmanuel hung strong and increased the lead to fifteen on a lay-up by senior captain Catherine Gallant with 4:21 to go.
The Cards refused to give up, going on an 18-5 run to end the game. Ali Fourney ’09 hit a three with seven seconds to go, cutting the lead to two, and the Cards fouled quickly, sending Emmanuel point guard Jade Paez to the line with two seconds remaining.
Paez missed both free throw attempts and Sarah Milburn ’07 grabbed the rebound. Milburn sent an outlet pass to Nikki Maletta ’09, whose desperation heave was just off the mark.
Shooting proved the undoing of the Cards in the loss. They dominated the Saints on the boards, grabbing 42 to the Saints 26, but could not produce enough off of their fifteen offensive rebounds.
The Cards shot just 38.5 percent from the field and made just 36.8 percent of their three-point attempts, while Emmanuel shot 48.3 percent from the field and made an impressive 53.8 percent of their three-point attempts. Meanwhile, Emmanuel’s pour free throw shooting percentage, a paltry 40.7 percent, helped keep the Cards in the game down the stretch.
“The loss Saturday sucked, and we should have won,” Fourney said. “I know that all of us are really disappointed because it was the second time we played them, and the second time we lost. Right now we need to just keep working hard at practice and work out the kinks so that we can be successful on Tuesday when we play Coast Guard.”
Fourney finished with a career best 24 points on 5-12 shooting from the field and 13-18 from the line. Rookie Kiah McAndrew-Davis ’10 contributed 13 points on 5-5 shooting in just 11 minutes of play. Lowe grabbed six rebounds and shot 3-4 from the field in contributing eight points.
The Cards will return to the court tonight at Coast Guard at 7 p.m.
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