BY
David Meister
Staff Writer
The Saint Rose men’s basketball team has had a productive winter break, they went 5-1 since Dec. 15 with their only loss coming on New Year’s Eve to the Daemen Wildcats.
Since classes began last week, the team looked to continue their winning ways on Wednesday against the Southern New Hampshire Penmen, which they did, 88-75. The Golden Knights went 55 percent in shooting from the floor against SNHU. Senior guard Mical-Ryan Boyd led Saint Rose in scoring with 19 points and five assists.
“We’ve been focusing on ball movement and playing inside out. We are a much better team when we are sharing the ball and being aggressive,” said Boyd, “We have to continue to get better on the defensive end, because we know this is a great team we are playing on Tuesday.”
Behind Boyd were senior forwards Jack Jones and Julian Lipinski with 16 and 14 points respectively.
“Our run is really just a product of the work we have been putting in all season. We have really talented guys and we have been finding our rhythm as players and as a team,” said Jones.
They looked to stretch their win streak to six, and did just that in a emphatic way, 91-67 against the Assumption Greyhounds. The Golden Knights were firing on all cylinders early, jumping out to an 18-2 start. Another great day shooting going 62 percent from the floor. Jack Jones lead the team in scoring after coming off the bench and scoring 15 points.
The team is now 15-4 so far this season and will look to ride this momentum into their next contest later today against the Saint Anselm Hawks.
“Tuesday’s matchup is a big one for us. St. Anselm is a good team and a tough place to go play,” said Jones, “For us it just comes down to defensively trying to take them out of what they want to do and offensively do what has been working for us. Hopefully we can come out strong and take it to them for 40 minutes.”
Women’s basketball is also on a hot streak of late. Since the break ended, they are winners of two straight, first against Southern New Hampshire 69-66 and then 76-65 over Assumption.
In the game against SNHU, junior guard Isa Vara de Rey led Saint Rose in scoring with 20 points, a career-high performance.
“My confidence has been building up since the season started and I feel like I’m playing my best basketball right now,” said Vara de Rey “Which hopefully helps the team do great things this year.”
It was a tightly contested ballgame with neither team wanting to back down. But the Golden Knights thanks to some solid play by Vara de Rey and sophomore guard Takora McIntyre down the stretch managed to hold on for the W.
In the match against the Greyhounds, sophomore forward Leah Dollard had a career high day of her own in scoring with 20 points.
“Coming into the game, I knew that Assumption was a great team and had some very talented players, also they were on a four-game winning streak,” said Dollard, “I, along with the rest of my team, used that as motivation and really wanted a win against a really good team and especially do it in front of our home fans.”
McIntyre also had another good day all around with 10 points and eight assists.
The team is now 9-9 at this point in the season and will look to break .500 in the win column when they travel to take on the Saint Anselm Hawks today. “We all have been playing together so well lately and it’s really showing on the court. Going into Tuesday’s game, we play our best basketball together and keeping our eyes on the prize, which is playoffs” said Dollard about the upcoming contest. “I feel like we have been playing our best in the last couple of games, which has brought us where we are right now. We are looking forward to Tuesday’s game against Saint Anselm and to keep playing as a team, always having each other’s back” said Vara de Rey.
Finally – in swimming and diving, both the men’s and women’s teams finished off their seasons with a meet against the Pace Setters. The women’s team fell to the Setters but managed a win against the other team at the meet, the Franklin Pierce Ravens.
The men also fell to Pace. Winners on the women’s side came from Sophomore Madeline McDermott in the 1000 yard freestyle and sophomore Gabrialla Ficano in the 100 yard breastroke.
“Over winter break the team traveled to Miami for a training trip. During that trip we practiced for 5 hours a day. The practices were very tough due to it being a crucial time of the season.” said McDermott, “I thought about how much work I put in and how tough I became from those hard practices.”
On the men’s side, freshman Grant Tinsley Little swept both the one meter and three meter board diving events.
Winners in the swimming events for the men were junior Trevor Attile in the 100 yard freestyle, junior Carl Nico Laborera in the 100 yard backstroke, and sophomore Charles Nicholas in the 100 yard butterfly.
“The only thing that gave me the drive to win the race was the fact that I had to give it my all to really test how well I would do in the race while having such a rigorous 4 weeks of training” said Nicholas. Both teams have two weeks to prepare for the upcoming NE-10 Championships which will take place on Feb. 8-11 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
“This coming week I will be practicing twice a day focusing particularly on swimming the mile (1650 yards) that being my main event at champs. Then the team will start taper the next week to rest for NE-10s,” said McDermott, “Taper is a time where your body recovers from all the hard work put in the weeks before.”
