By JONAS MILLER
Co-Executive Editor
On the back of five 3-pointers from sophomore Ashley Vanderwall, the Saint Rose women’s basketball team mounted a comeback for the ages as they upended the last place Ravens of Franklin Pierce 68-67 on Saturday afternoon.
Going into halftime, the Golden Knights (5-5, 10-6) were down 19 points – with 3.3 seconds left in the game, senior guard Taylor Nazon got a layup to fall, putting Saint Rose up by one in what proved to be the game winning shot.
The Ravens (0-10, 2-13) put up a fight, showing an underdog mentality right from the start. They ran a full court press defense for the entirety of the first half in attempt to force some early mistakes.
As both teams went to the locker rooms after the second quarter, their strategy seemed to be paying off. Not only did Franklin Pierce dominate the paint in the first half, an area usually controlled by the Golden Knights, they held Saint Rose to just a 26 percent field goal percentage through the first two quarters.
In the locker room, head coach Karen Haag didn’t mince words when speaking to her team.
“I told them how lackluster they were in the first half,” Haag said. “We were out-rebounded, out-hustled, and outplayed.”
Haag said she told her players they needed to better control the post and get to the rim more often if they wanted to have a chance in the second half. Apparently, they heard her.
In the third quarter alone, the Golden Knights had 12 rebounds – in the entire first half, they had 13.
At the beginning of the second half, the offense began to click right away as Vanderwall knocked down back to back threes, quickly cutting the Franklin Pierce lead to 13, and forcing the Ravens to call and early timeout.
“My teammates did a good job finding me when I was open,” Vanderwall said. “I knew I had to knock them down in order to get us back into the game.”
After cutting the deficit to seven, the Golden Knights kept rolling in the fourth quarter. Nazone found 10 of her 16 points in the final 10 minutes, including the game winner, and senior Staci Barrett cleaned up the glass for Saint Rose, amassing nine of her 10 rebounds in the second half.
The Golden Knights will take on Merrimack at home on Wednesday, and both Haag and Vanderwall see obvious improvements that need to be made.
“We need to do a better job on rebounding but I can tell our team is starting to click,” Vanderwall said. This was echoed by Haag.
“It’s taken us awhile to mesh,” Haag said. “We will be stressing rebounding and defense as we always do in preparation for Wednesday’s game.”
The game will start at 5:30 on Wednesday night in the Daniel P. Nolan gymnasium at The College of Saint Rose.
For more information on the Women’s Basketball team and the rest of the Saint Rose athletic department, visit www.gogoldenknights.com
