By Aaron M Smith
ST. BONAVENTURE, NY–Excuse the Marist Red Foxes women’s basketball team if they make a last minute addition to their Christmas list. Coach Brian Giorgis and his staff might ask Santa Claus if they can avoid playing Chelsea Bowker again. For the second straight year, the junior forward torched the Red Foxes, scoring 16 second-half points leading the St. Bonaventure Bonnies to a hard fought 67-56 win.
Bowker, who led the Bonnies past Marist last year with 17, scored a game-high 19 points Sunday afternoon at the Reilly Center. Jessica Jenkins added 16, and Megan Van Tatenhove, returning from injury, came off the bench to score 10 points. Brandy Gang led Marist with 18 points.
Both teams took part of the first half to shake off the final exam blues as neither team scored until the 17:20 mark . The Bonnies finally broke through after Alaina Walker grabbed the defensive rebound, drove the length of the floor and found Bowker wide open on the wing for a three-pointer. A pair of Jessica Jenkins trifectas and a lay-up by Walker quickly followed, and the Bonnies jumped out to an 11-0 lead.
Marist, however, struggled on the offensive end and didn’t break through until the 11:50 mark, when Brandy Gang scored on a lay-up. However, missed opportunities on the offensive end by the Bonnies and Marist’s gaining their confidence on the offensive end are not a good recipe for holding a lead, almost guaranteeing this game would not end in a blowout. Relying on back door cuts and interior screens, Marist climbed back into the game, and at the 3:39 mark, Marist’s Brandy Gang hit a three-pointer to tie the score, 17-17.
“They do that (screens and cuts) and they are really good at it. It is not an action we see a lot,” Coach Jim Crowley explained. “So we knew it would be difficult especially with one day to prepare and we couldn’t go real hard to prepare for it. So the thing we just thought we weren’t doing well enough in the first half was being there for our teammate. The screener’s defender wasn’t communicating, wasn’t taking away the layup. We were so worried about the person popping out for the three point shot, that the person setting the screen; we were leaving our teammates out to dry. We corrected that and we really wanted them to beat us with jump shots, not with layups. I thought our kids did that in the second half.”
The teams traded baskets for the rest of half and would enter the locker rooms with Marist leading, 27-26. This marks just the second time all season that the Bonnies have trailed at halftime. It was the Bonnies’ first since their fifth game of the season against Delaware.
The second half continued exactly the same way the first half ended, with Bowker hitting a three pointer on the wing for the Bonnies. The Junior forward from Salem, OH would score 8 of the Bonnies’ first 11 points. After a quick Marist timeout, Bowker hit another trey to extend their lead to 38-35. The Bonnies would never trail for the rest of the game.
Marist had other ideas and refused to go away. With 7:57 left and time running out on the shot clock, Leanne Ockenden hit a three pointer in front of the Marist bench and the score was tied, 48-48.
In a game that featured 6 lead changes, you can’t put a price on senior leadership. At the 7:22 mark, Megan Van Tatenhove provided just that. The senior forward, who shook off another loose ball collison, scored the next 5 points in the game, including a 3-point play, the old fashion way. Bowker added another three off a cross-court pass by Doris Ortega, and the Bonnies led 58-51.
The Bonnies travel to Colgate for a 2 pm matinee on Thursday, December 22nd.
The Red Foxes are home for a match-up against Auburn on Wednesday, December 21st.
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