March 1, 2007 - Saint Peter's 74 Rider 53
March 1, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Women’s College Basketball
Saint Peter’s College 74, Rider University 53
BRIDGEPORT, CT—The Rider University women’s basketball season came to an end Thursday with a first round loss to Saint Peter’s at the 2007 Bank of America Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship tournament. "We didn't play very well today," said assistant coach Brian Johnson. "The positive is that with mostly freshmen and sophomores on the roster, they now have a solid year under their belt and that's going to make us better as a unit going into next season."
Rider (2-28), the tenth seed, was led by freshman Ashley Anderson (East Orange), who scored a career-high 15 points and added four rebounds. "Ashley gives us a low-post presence that we haven't really had in the last two years," said Johnson. "She did what we knew she could do. We need for her to pick up her defense a little more but she gave us some good minutes off the bench today. Ashley will be an important component for us going into next season."
"We had some good stops early on defense," said Anderson. "We then started to struggle on the offensive end." The Peahens started the game shooting two for nine but rebounded by making 23 of 45 field goals in the final 35 minutes of the game and shot 45 percent from the field overall.
Saint Peter’s (12-17), the seventh seed, led 37-24 before going on a 9-2 run, four points by Lauma Reke, to take a 46-26 lead with 15:36 left to play. Reke, a 6’1” junior forward from Latvia, led all scorers with 21 points and added seven rebounds.
"I realized the importance of the game," Anderson added. "And I also realized that I could have and should have been playing like that all season. We just didn't put it together as a team. The tournament was a good experience and I hope to build on the positives of today's game going into next year."
Rider sophomore Shaunice Parker (Waldorf, Md./West Lake) compiled 11 points and nine rebounds. Sophomore Maura Gillooly (Fanwood/Scotch Plains-Fanwood) added eight points in 17 minutes off the bench and junior Janele Henderson (Brooklyn, N.Y./Bishop Loughlin) added seven points and three rebounds.
Junior Kelli Sawyer (Philadelphia, Pa./Friends Select/LIU) who became ill five minutes prior to tip off, started but was limited to 11 minutes of action. "It changed some of the things we wanted to do," Johnson added. "We were looking for Kelli to put some ball pressure on Saint Peter's and she also gives us another quick guard to better match up with them so not having her 100 percent did change some of the things we wanted to do."
Rider led 7-5 before Saint Peter’s went on a 12-2 run, six points by Reke, to take a 17-9 lead with 8:49 left in the first half, and the Peahens led 32-19 at half time.
Rider made its first three-point field goal attempt (by Henderson) but finished six for 22 from beyond the arc, two by Gillooly in the final five minutes of the game.
Rider was seven for 10 from the foul line, compared to 19 for 27 for Saint Peter’s from the line. "We rushed a lot of shots," said Johnson. "We knew that Saint Peter's wanted us to shoot from outside so we tried to establish an inside game and drive to the basket and we got impatient and I think it was more of what we did, not running through the offense than what Saint Peter's was able to do to us."
Rider senior Kara Borel (East Stroudsburg, Pa.) graduates with 819 points and 728 rebounds. She ranks third all-time in career rebounds at Rider. Borel tied the Rider record for games played in a career with 113, a record set in 1985 by Carolyn Cook.
"I think we defended teams better as the year went on," Johnson added. "We have a pretty good base to build on for next year and we need to just compete better. We struggled but we need to look at this as a learning process and in a year or two look back and see how far we've come. It's going to be hard but we are going to learn from this season and get the players workng hard in the off-season to come out stronger in 2007-08."
-RU-
