Women's College Basketball
Marist College 72, Rider University 62
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Game
LAWRENCEVILLE--Proud of the effort but not satisfied with the result.
Senior Amanda Sepulveda (Perth Amboy/Hun) had 16 points and a career-high eight assists as Rider (2-13, 0-4 MAAC) gave defending MAAC champion Marist (12-4, 4-0 MAAC) all it could handle with the Red Foxes escaping Alumni Gym with a 72-62 win over the Broncs Monday night.
"I'm very, very proud of the team," said head coach Lynn Milligan. "They followed the game plan exactly how it was set up and we gave ourselves an opportunity to win the game. Now we need to take that next step and get a victory. The effort was there; we didn't get the result that we wanted."
Junior Cintella Spotwood (Trenton/Trenton Central) had 15 points with freshman Caitlin Bopp (Baltimore, Md./Inst. Of Notre Dame) adding 12 rebounds. Bopp was named MAAC Rookie of the Week for the third time this season prior to the game.
"The conference recognition is good," Bopp said. "It means the hard work is paying off. I just hope I can continue to do what I'm doing and help the team. We really turned a corner during the Syracuse game when we gave them all they could handle. And tonight we gave Marist a run. We feel that we are getting better as the season goes on." Rider was only down six with four minutes left against the nationally ranked Orange before Syracuse used a 15-0 run to pull away.
"I need to play my role and do the little things," said Spotwood who scored in double-digits for the first time in six games. "When I try to do too much, it gets me off my game. I needed to play with more intensity and tonight I did that and we did that as a team."
Sepulveda hit a three-pointer to tie the game at 51, the 11th tie of the contest. Sepulveda had four three-pointers in the game.
"This means we can hang with anyone in the MAAC," Sepulveda. "It wasn't a win but the effort means a lot. We were focused for 40 minutes and stuck to the game plan. Every possession counts and we stayed in it by taking care of the ball."
The Red Foxes responded with a 5-0 run (the 16th and final lead change), four points by MAAC Preseason Player of the Year Rachele Fitz to give Marist a 56-51 lead with 6:13 left. Fitz finished with 21 points in 39 minutes of play.
"We had a couple of break downs at the end," Milligan said. "But the overall effort was fantastic."
Sophomore Sarah Homan (Upper Darby, Pa./Delco Christian) hit four free throws to get Rider to within two (61-59) with 3:29 left but that was a close as the Broncs would get. Homan had 10 points and eight rebounds.
"Cintella and Sarah are two players that we are counting on as we head into the second half of the season," Milligan said. "Sarah for the last two games and Cintella tonight, they showed what they are capable of."
The Red Foxes put the game away with a 6-0 run, four points by Corielle Yarde to make it 67-59 Marist with 42 seconds left. Yarde, who was named MAAC Player of the Week this past week, had a game-high 30 points, 19 in the second half.
"Marist has two players (Fitz and Yarde) who are prime time scorers," Milligan said. "Those are the players that hurt us tonight. We needed to slow Yarde down in the second half and we didn't. Fitz really had to earn her 21 points tonight and Corielle stepped up and made some big shots as well."
Marist made five of six free throws in the last 29 seconds for the final score. The Red Foxes entered play number one in the nation in free throw percentage but shot just 22-31 from the charity stripe.
The opening half saw 10 lead changes as neither team could gain more than a five point lead.
Trailing 9-5, Rider went on a 5-0 run, three points by Spotwood to take a 10-9 lead with 12:36 left in the first half.
Trailing 16-15, the Broncs again responded with a 4-0 run, two points each by Homan and freshman Dior Brown (Upper Darby, Pa./Upper Darby) to give the Rider its largest lead of the game (19-16) with 5:41 left in the half. D. Brown, making her third career start, finished with six points and two rebounds in 24 minutes.
With Rider up 22-20, Marist used a 7-0 run to take a 27-22 lead with 40 seconds left before intermission. Sepulveda's three-pointer brought Rider to within 27-25 at the half.
Tied at 30, Marist went on a 7-1 run before Rider responded with a 8-0 run, five points by freshman Shereen Lightbourne (Elmsford, N.Y./Alexander Hamilton) to take a 39-37 lead with 12:39 left. Lightbourne finished with five points and a steal in 17 minutes off the bench.
"Shereen has battled through some injuries but she is catching up and being where she needs to be," Milligan said. "The more depth we have, the better we will do." The Rider bench out-scored Marist 19-0.
"It was important that we didn't quit when Marist made their runs," Spotwood said. "We've had trouble after half time since conference play started and tonight, we kept things together and responded when we needed to."
"We gave up two or three in a row but tonight we seemed to have answers for any run that Marist was able to throw at us," Milligan said. "We came down and ran the offense and didn't panic. That credit goes to Amanda. She played all 40 minutes and had eight assists and only two turnovers. That's what you need your senior point guard to do."
Entering play, Rider was averaging over 23 turnovers a game but committed just 10 against the Red Foxes. "When you don't turn the ball over against the best team in the conference, you are going to give yourselves an opportunity to win," Milligan added.
"Only having 10 turnovers is awesome for us," Sepulveda said. "We need to carry that over and continue to attack. We needed an effort like this really, really bad. We made each possession count more and most importantly, we just went out and played. It didn't matter that we were facing Marist. We just focused on the things we could control and the one key was to take care of the ball. We need to play 40 minutes of our game and not try things that we are not capable of doing."
The Red Foxes did manage to take advantage of the turnovers scoring 16 points off the Bronc miscues.
Rider out-rebounded Marist 40-37, 16-10 on the offensive glass. Marist doulbed Rider in the paint 24-12.
This was the 41st meeting between the former Northeast Conference rivals with Marist winning 28. The Red Foxes have won 13 in a row in the series.
The Red Foxes have won six MAAC regular season championships in a row and have won the MAAC tournament in five of the last six seasons including four in a row (2004, 2006-2009). Including the conference playoffs, Marist has won 82 of its last 87 MAAC games with Rider winning only 15 MAAC games over that same span.
Marist has won eight straight and the Red Foxes are the only undefeated team left in MAAC play. Rider has lost six straight.
This was Rider's first home game since December 20 against La Salle with the Broncs having played four road games in a row.
The teams meet again in Poughkeepsie, New York on February 12 at 7:30pm.
"We gave a solid workman like effort tonight," Milligan said. "That effort is required if you are going to wear our uniform and our players, especially the younger ones are really buying into that. The mentality we showed tonight is what will make us successful."
The Broncs host Canisius (6-9, 1-3 MAAC) on Saturday in a MAAC game at 2pm in Alumni Gymnasium on the Lawrenceville campus. The Golden Griffins defeated Manhattan 69-65 in double-overtime on Monday afternoon. Rider and Canisius split two games last season with each team winning on the road.
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