February 4, 2007 - Fairfield 73 Rider 57
February 4, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Women’s College Basketball
Fairfield University 73, Rider University 57
LAWRENCEVILLE—The Broncs lost a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game to Fairfield Sunday afternoon. “We ran the offense and got a lot of open looks and then didn’t finish and I think that shows a lack of focus,” said head coach Tori Harrison.
Fairfield (12-11, 8-4 MAAC) led 39-26 before out-scoring Rider 14-3 to take a 53-29 lead with 14 minutes left in the second half.
For the Stags, Baendu Lowenthal scored 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
“We came out lifeless and I was pleading with them to play,” Harrison added. “The players are only human and we’ve struggled this season. I understand that you can lose your focus but you have to regain your desire to compete. I felt today that some of the players are looking forward to the end of the season and as coaches, we need to get that corrected.”
Rider (1-22, 0-12 MAAC) went on a 14-3 run, five points by sophomore Shaunice Parker (Waldorf, Md./West Lake), to cut the lead to 56-43 with 9:30 left to play, but that was as close as the Broncs could get. Parker finished with a team-high 13 points off the bench.
Senior Kara Borel (East Stroudsburg, Pa./Stroudsburg) compiled 11 points and four rebounds, and now has 702 career rebounds.
Borel is just the third Bronc to ever compile 700 rebounds. “I don’t look at numbers overall,” said Borel, who is also 12th on the all-time assist list at Rider. “I like to just go out and show effort and leave people with the image that I gave 100 percent all the time and they can look at the lists and remember me in that light down the road. As far as the game today, we got the passes and executed the offense. That’s the hardest part, getting the ball inside and we didn’t finish and make our shots and looking at the score, if we would have made some of those shots the outcome could have been a lot different. I thought Fairfield dictated the play and got us out of our game.”
“Kara has always tried to be a leader with her effort,” Harrison said. “I can’t speak highly enough of what Kara has sacrificed for the program. We just need to get the younger players to see and execute the things that she is trying to teach them. In leading by example, sometimes Kara tries to do too much and that’s because the other players haven’t stepped up yet and if we can keep Kara within her game and have the other players execute better, we would be able to stay in a lot more games.”
Holding a 17-16 lead, Fairfield out-scored Rider 18-4 over the final six minutes of the first half to take a 35-20 lead at intermission.
Trailing 17-11, Rider went on a 5-0 run, all five points by Parker, to cut the lead to 17-16.
Rider freshman Stephanie Wisniewski (Levittown, Pa./Villa Joseph Marie) added nine points and junior Janele Henderson (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Loughlin) contributed eight points, five rebounds and a career-high five assists off the bench. Junior Kelli Sawyer (Philadelphia, Pa./Friends Select/LIU) dished off a career-high eight assists and the Broncs had 16 assists on 19 made field goals. The Stags had 22 assists on 28 made field goals.
Rider hosts Niagara Friday as part of the MAAC doubleheader with the men. The women's game tips off at 5:30pm.
-RU-
