Monaghan’s Career Day Carries Saint Joseph’s Over La Salle in Big Five Win On Hawks’ Alumni Day

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — On Alumni Day on Hawk Hill, Saint Joseph’s and visiting La Salle competed in the way of prior memorable battles with the home team prevailing in Hagan Arena Sunday 60-57 in what was both a Big Five and Atlantic 10 affair televised on the CBS Sports Network.

The first sign that it might be the Hawks’ afternoon in the first of two between the local rivals was that for all the dire weather forecasts, in the end no snow fell, the rain stopped several hours earlier, and the sun was shining as the clock neared its 4 p.m. tipoff.

“I think Ellen Ryan was smiling on us and had something to do with it,” Hawks veteran coach Cindy Griffin, a former backcourt star here, said beforehand paying tribute to the first program coach and longtime women’s administrator.

Both teams have had atypical down years  — Saint Joseph’s struggling to score in the wake of over 70 percent of the offense graduated while La Salle has been been struggling to win, period, during a rebuilding mode under first-year coach Mountain MacGillivray.

However, at the outset in what was a closely fought contest, the Explorers took control and worked their way to a 21-11 lead early in the second period.

But while one “Mountain” was guiding the visitors from the sidelines, another mountain of sorts was a force on the other squad with senior Alyssa Monaghan bringing the Hawks (6-12, 2-3 Atlantic 10, 1-3 Big Five) back and finishing with a career-high 25 points.

Monaghan shot 9-for-14 from the field, including 5-for-7 on three-point attempts, while dealing four assists and grabbing three steals. Just last Wednesday she matched her previous best with 23 points in a loss at Duquesne. She also collected 23 at Niagara in the 2017-18 season opener.

Krystalyn Baisden also scored in double figures with 10 points Sunday while Katie Jekot scored nine, collecting most of hers on 7-for-10 from the line and scoring with the outcome undetermined down the stretch.

Shalina Miller had 14 points for the Explorers (3-16, 0-5, 0-4 Big Five) as did Shayla Sweeney, matching her career high while Rayshel Brown scored 10, though matters weren’t helped when Miller and Brown ultimately fouled out down the stretch.

“I think it was a typical Big Five battle,” Griffin said, “it was one of those games, we were playing from behind most of the game, the players stepped up, Monaghan had a great game, she was earning everything that she got, and when the opportunity presented itself, she made all the shots and that really, really helped us.

“We got to the foul line a lot of times (17-for-30 vs. 7-for-14), attacking the basket, we need to shoot better from the foul line, obviously, we outrebounded the other team (32-31), that was nice to see, and, yes, really, really excited to see us get this win on our home court on Alumni Day.

“They saw, The Hawk Will Never Die, that’s our philosophy, to play scrappy and gritty, and to fight.

“It’s never easy with these games, it doesn’t matter what your record is, there’s a lot of pride on the line,” Griffin said. “We’re going to see La Salle again, we get to play them twice, so we expect to see the same thing the second time we play them, but it was nice to represent the Saint Joseph’s team of today in front of a lot of Saint Joe’s teams from before.”

After the deficit reached 10 points on Miller’s shot for La Salle, the Hawks closed the half of a 12-6 run to trail 27-23.

La Salle regained a stronger hold early in the third period on Michelle Nicholls’ three-ball and Miller’s shot for a nine-point lead.

But the Hawks struck back again, launching a 12-2 run to go ahead 35-34 with 4:39 left in the third.

It then stayed close with La Salle getting back in front but being left with a one-point lead 43-42 after Katie Mayock’s shot for the Hawks just before the third concluded.

Monaghan’s dime put Saint Joseph’s in front early in the next period for a lead the Hawks would not relinquish but they didn’t get into safe territory until Jekot’s two foul shots made it a five-point lead with 21 seconds left.

Monaghan and Nicholls each then went 1-for-2 from the line to keep it at five with nine seconds left and then Nicholls scored before the end of regulation for the game’s final points.

Being a Big Five contest, the last for both, La Salle went 0-4, though competitive in the City Series round robin, while Saint Joseph’s finished fourth after beating the Explorers for the sixth straight time.

Following Villanova’s win over Penn last Wednesday to claim the local title outright at 4-0, second place will be decided Wednesday night at 7 when Temple visits the Quakers in The Palestra. Both teams are 2-1.

With the inordinate performance of the Atlantic 10, anything could be possible if Saint Joseph’s can put things together ahead of a prized recruiting class on the way next season just as they executed the magical run to the title game a year ago as an under-seed.

The win over La Salle has the Hawks tied for eighth in the conference with three other teams, but only a game behind three more that are tied for fifth with a lot of season left beginning with Wednesday’s Virginia visit to Richmond.

The Spiders (3-15 overall) are winless in the conference as are the Explorers at the bottom of the 14-team field.

“It’s really been up and down with a lot of different teams, on any given night the top teams can be beat, and it’s going to be down the stretch, positioning for the tournament (at Duquesne in Pittsburgh) and who’s going to be hot during that time,” Griffin said.

“We’re starting to play better, doing a lot of things better, and we’re excited about playing our next opponent, which is Richmond. We’ll be tested at Richmond, we’ve been tested all year long so it will be taking it one game at a time.”

Though La Salle fell short, the Explorers performed like progress is being made and it wouldn’t be a shock to see them doing some spoiling the rest of the way.

“No doubt, that was one of our more complete games with the effort we put out, I was pleased with our overall discipline and execution,” MacGillivray said. “We still made too many mistakes, the 20 turnovers, I think maybe 11 of them weren’t forced, undoubtedly a number of fouls we didn’t need to commit, but with all that said, so much better than it’s been.

“Pleased to come here in this historic gym against a legendary coach and give them a good fight. And that was as good as we ever shot, (44.9) percent,” he noted.

“We never shot that well all season. I was really pleased with the way we put the ball in the basket, different players scoring from different spots,” he continued.

“It just didn’t go our way and Saint Joe’s hasn’t been that great offensively. But they defend, and for us to score against that defense, I was really pleased.”

La Salle will host Duquesne Wednesday night in Tom Gola Arena at 7 p.m. The Dukes (10-8, 4-1) were made the preseason favorite but are tied with Davidson and Dayton, a game behind Virginia Commonwealth, which is unbeaten in the conference.