Dribble, drive, dish, shoot: Cardinals guard Ali Fourney ’09 does it all. With a three-pointer on Friday night against Trinity, she scored her 1,000th point—a major milestone in an already stellar career. Despite playing only half of the game due to early foul trouble, Fourney notched 11 important points in a 67-59 comeback win over Trinity to become only the second Wesleyan woman to reach 1,000 points as a junior.
“She’s definitely talented but she works hard,” said Fourney’s backcourt mate Nikki Maletta ’08. “We’re glad she’s on the team.”
Perhaps even more important than her scoring is Fourney’s defense. Playing a little small by NESCAC standards, the Cards rely on their speed and tenacity to shut down opposing offenses, and Fourney leads the group with her ability to defend on the perimeter and in the paint. So far this year she has 64 steals, more than any other player in the NESCAC.
The Cardinals nearly let the Trinity game slip away, however. Due to a sluggish start, Wesleyan trailed by eight at halftime to a team that is winless in the conference. The Cards battled back, edging ahead of the Bantams with seven minutes left on a Maletta lay-up. While in the midst of her own personal 5-1 run, Maletta started a 9-0 Wesleyan run that effectively ended the night for Trinity, capped by Fourney’s milestone trey. The Bantams never came within five points of the lead and Wesleyan escaped with the win.
The Cardinals left Hartford with a 5-1 record in the NESCAC and a brand new 1,000-point scorer, but couldn’t end the weekend with a victory at Amherst. The Lord Jeffs scored the first six points of the game and held the lead for the rest of the contest, eventually winning 70-53.
“We missed an opportunity to beat a good team,” Maletta said. “There’s no specific reason we lost. We just let that one get away.”
Fourney scored 17 points and Lucy Sprung ’08 had 14 in the losing effort, but Amherst, ranked 21st in the nation, hit over 50 percent from the field and never let Wesleyan get into the game. Down by 23 with less than two minutes left, the Cards ended the game with a 6-0 run but still fell well short of taking down the Lord Jeffs.
The loss to Amherst dropped the Cardinals into a three-way tie for third place in the NESCAC.
“That definitely hurt us in terms of the NESCAC [tournament],” Maletta said.
The Cards will make the conference tournament, but need to win this weekend against Middlebury and Williams in order to finish in the top half and secure a home tournament game.
Dropping the Amherst game also leaves Wesleyan 0-3 in Little Three match-ups. The Cards get one more crack at winning when Williams comes to Silloway Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon in a game that could decide the NESCAC tournament seeding.
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