February 23, 2007 - Manhattan 78 Rider 66
February 23, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Women's College Basketball
Manhattan College 78, Rider University 66
RIVERDALE, N.Y.--The Broncs lost a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game at Manhattan Friday night. "We were down by a lot early and I went in the locker room and challenged them at the half," said head coach Tori Harrison. "I wanted to know who wanted to play and battle the final 20 minutes."
For Rider (2-26, 1-16 MAAC), junior Janele Henderson (Brooklyn, N.Y./Bishop Loughlin) had 19 points.
"We made an effort to attack the basket more in the second half," said Henderson. "Our problem when we get down by so much so early is that we have to expend so much energy to battle back and once we get within a few points, we don't have enough left in the tank to finish."
With the Jaspers leading 68-55 with 5:56 left in the game, Rider used an 11-2 run, nine points from Henderson to cut the Manhattan lead to six at 72-66 with 2:20 left but that was as close as the Broncs would get in the Bronx.
Manhattan held Rider without a point in the last 2:20, finishing the game with a 6-0 run for the final score.
"It's a matter of the players getting tired of being humiliated," said Harrison. "And the way we came back shows me that there is some pride and desire to compete and we need to carry that emotion into the game on Sunday."
For Manhattan (10-18, 7-10 MAAC), Caitlin Flood had 27 points with Kelly Regan adding 16.
With the Broncs leading 14-13, the Jaspers went on a 10-0 run, four points each by Flood and Regan to take a 23-14 lead with 9:30 remaining in the first half. Up 27-19, Manhattan went on an 11-1 run, opening up an 18-point lead at 38-20 with two minutes left in the opening half.
Rider used a 10-2 run to close the opening frame, six points by junior Kelli Sawyer (Philadelphia, Pa./Friends Select/LIU) to pull within ten 40-30 at the half. Sawyer finished with nine points, all from the charity stripe as the teams combined for 46 fouls. The Broncs were 26-31 from the foul line.
"We play in spurts," said Sawyer. "Five minutes here, ten minutes there. We are still looking for that 40-minute effort. We need to put a whole game together."
"We were successful getting to the line tonight," said Harrison. "It was more of our outside players driving to the basket and you have to be more aggressive and we've been working on that. We just need to stop turning the ball over and giving our opponents easy baskets. We had 21 more turnovers tonight and that's not acceptable."
"Coach Harrison told us to start driving to the basket at halftime," said Sawyer. "And that adjustment worked because Manhattan started having trouble keeping up with our players and started to foul us. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to complete the comeback."
Rider plays the final game of the regular season on Sunday at Alumni Gym, hosting Iona in a MAAC game at 2:00pm. During the game, Rider will hold its annual celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day and prior to the game will honor its two graduating seniors Monica Welborn and Kara Borel.
"We played Iona tough the first time," Henderson added. "We want to play well in the last home game of the season and send the seniors out the right way. We also want to pick up some momentum heading into the MAAC tournament."
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