The Guru Report: Saint Joseph’s and La Salle Ride Rallies to Victory

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — In two different ways that eluded each all season, the La Salle and Saint Joseph’s women, both at home, rallied for a pair of wins in the Atlantic 10 Wednesday, only the second time both won on the same day all season.

Things didn’t go as well, however, for the the third and only other team in the Guru’s group who played, Penn State, which fell at Ohio State 78-73 in the Big Ten.

La Salle, 14th and last in the A-10 standings, playing its annual matinee Kids Day game at the Tom Gola arena, picked up its first conference win on the season and first for new coach Mountain MacGillivray, as the Explorers rallied and fended off a closing challenge to top Rhode Island 77-71.

Seven hours later Saint Joseph’s was down 14 points at 39-25 with seven minutes left in the third period when the Hawks at Hagan Arena stirred and while still down at nine at the close of the period went on to soar with a 27-6 run over the the last ten minutes and forge a huge 65-54 upset of Davidson that had been the talk of the league.

Picked 11th by the A-10 coaches in the preseason poll, the Wildcats (13-9, 7-2 Atlantic 10) had come to town a few days after blasting La Salle 80-61 at home Sunday in North Carolina and trailing VCU by just a half-game in the win column.

They left in a second-place tie with Dayton 1.5 games off the pace, which they might not have dropped but for VCU’s 15-0 run in the fourth quarter elsewhere which produced a win over St. Bonaventure.

Saint Joseph’s (7-15, 3-6) though still mired in 11th place, is only 1.5 games behind sixth with a lot of games left before the tournament begins on home courts in the first round and finishes the next three rounds at Duquesne’s Palombo Center in Pittsburgh.

Kristalyn Baisden matched her career high of 23 points for Saint Joseph’s set last month against Dayton, shooting 9-for-15 from the field, including 4-of-8 three-pointers, and dealt four assists.

Alyssa Monaghan added 18 points to the Hawks’ total while Kelly Jekot scored 11. Lula Roig grabbed nine rebounds.

Sarah Donovan had 18 points for Davidson along with nine rebounds, while Katie Turner scored 11, and Justine Lyon scored 10.

“Wow, I can’t tell you how proud I am of this group,” said Hawks coach Cindy Griffin. “We really, really came back from being down (double digits), and just really stayed the course and stayed committed to the game plan, and really just persevered.

“We needed this win, we needed this win really, really bad. And (Davidson) is a really good team. They were first coming in and they’ve beaten a lot of people on the road, so for us it was just really a great win, a must win.”

In the fourth quarter, the Hawks shot 9-for-12 from the field, including 4-for-4 on three-point attempts.

After taking the lead and suffering a quick answer from the Wildcats, the Hawks clamped down over the final 3 minutes, 16 seconds to deny Davidson anything from the field (0-11) and finished out on a 9-0 run.

Saint Joseph’s, picked fifth in the preseason, had trouble scoring all season but on this night when the rally launched, the Hawks fans recalled their late season run a year ago and thrust in the conference tournament as an under-seed to advance to the title game before falling to George Washington.

The Hawks will travel to Washington Sunday to play those same Colonials, who have had struggles of their own this season.

Asked what she thought was more impressive in the win over Davidson, the comeback alone or that it was manufactured against one of the better teams in the A-10 standings, Griffin said, “I think both.

“Again, just seeing who they beat on the road in our conference is so tough to do and then to be able to come back and get over the hump, which we hadn’t been able to get over, and just chipping away, and chipping away, and Baisden had a great game today, and Monaghan did her thing, an we had a lot of other players contribute, so collectively they all did a very, very nice job.”

This season no one in the A-10 has shown near-invincibilty so might the tournament be wide open with surprises as Saint Joseph’s sprung last year?

“I believe that, I do believe that,” Griffin said. “There’s a lot of parity in the conference, it’s anybody’s championship and that’s what makes it exciting, we’ll just take it one game at a time, but we just have to continue to get our confidence and just get some more wins under our belt.”

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, La Salle went through a roller coaster with Rhode Island, bolting to an 18-10 opening first-quarter, then getting rocked 31-14 over the next 10 minutes before exploding to dominate the third 25-12.

In the fourth, it became a matter of not letting one get away from La Salle with the Rams reducing an eight point deficit to go up a point 68-67 with 2:46 left in regulation, and then the Explorers get it back but still be in peril with a one-point lead with 50 seconds left.

However, that would be the last Rhode Island score and La Salle’s two power engines on the day Australian Michelle Nicholls and Sofilia Ngwafang combined to produce the Explorers’ final five points for the win as well as an overall team high in points.

It’s only the second time this season Saint Joseph’s and La Salle won when playing the same day.

On Dec. 20 the Hawks won at Sacred Heart in Connecticut while the Explorers (4-20, 1-9) on the second of a modest two-game win streak and third of four run, beat Pepperdine in Providence’s tournament, ironically in Rhode Island.

In Wednesday’s win, La Salle’s Nicholls, who starred in the Philly women’s summer league, had 23 points for a career-high  while shooting 7-for-11 from the field, including 3-of-5 three-balls, and dealing a career-high seven assists.

Meanwhile Ngwafang came off the bench to score a matching career-best 18 points, shooting 7-of-13 from the field in 24 minutes, Kayla Spruill had 11, also shooting 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, and Jeryn Reese had a near double double with eight points and nine rebounds.

The 26 field goals overall were also a season best.

“So you look back at our wins, which isn’t hard since we had won only three of them, and in each we won the turnover battle and some significantly,” MacGillivray said.

“Michelle took the game over, she was fantastic, made shot after shot when it was needed and what can I say about Sofilia, she was huge today, great hands, catching the ball, finishing on the move, putting the ball in the basket, played real solid defense, made it tough for them on the other side, real solid effort.”

Elemy Colome had a game-high 25 points for Rhode Island (7-15, 2-8) while Davida Dale had 13 points and 10 rebounds, and Nicole Jorgensen had 11 points.

“I can’t believe we won the third quarter, that’s been our problem,” MacGillivray said. “I don’t think we had a turnover in the third.

“(Rhode Island) wasn’t going to quit, they’re a good team, and I knew we were going to have problems with ebb and flow. We won the game by breaking their press, which is ironic because we almost lost the game by not breaking the press.”

La Salle next goes to St. Louis Sunday at 3 p.m.

Penn State Falls Short at Ohio State

Once upon a time this matchup in the conference usually had championship implications besides some national significance.

The Buckeyes, however, have struggled after the graduation of such stars as Kelsey Mitchell.

Still, they were able to find a way to prevail over the Lady Lions, 78-73, going ahead 74-73 with 21.7 seconds left in regulation at Value City Arena in Columbus.

The Lady Lions (10-12, 3-8), way down in12th place, had a shot blocked on the next possession and the Buckeyes (10-11, 6-6) then made four straight free throws to get the game’s final points.

The loss ruined a night of noteworthiness for Penn State’s Teniya Page, who had 22 points and seven assists to become the first in program history to have career totals reaching 2,000 points, 400 rebounds, and 400 assists.

It was also her 100th game in which Page scored double digits points while Siyeh Frazier tied a career high with 17 points. She also had six rebounds and two steals.

Carly Santoro had 20 points for Ohio State while Makayla Waterman had a career high 19 points and Dorka Juhasz had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Ohio State also was helped in shooting 25-for-32 from the line while Penn State was 16 for 18.

The Lady Lions next host Michigan Sunday at 2 p.m.

And that’s the report.