Guru’s Report - Local: La Salle and Delaware Win on the Road While Drexel, Rider, and Penn State Suffer Setbacks

Guru’s note: The national section, when completed, depending when you are viewing this, will be posted separately above the local report.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Delaware continued to surge in the Colonial Athletic Association, pocketing away another sweep on the road by winning at Hofstra 65-46 at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibigtion Complex in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island to finish a sweep of the Pride Sunday afternoon and stay in first place while La Salle gained a road split in its Atlantic 10 travels, beating Duquesne 67-63, in Pittsburgh.

Among the other three locals who played, however, the fortunes were not as well.

Drexel suffered its first CAA loss, falling at William & Mary 69-53, in Kaplan Arena in Williamsburg, Va.,, while Rider couldn’t continue momentum from Saturday’s win and fell to St. Peter’s, 59-50, for a split at home in Alumni Gym in Lawrenceville, N.J., in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

Penn State, meanwhile, playing for the first time since winning at Minnesota a week ago, on its original schedule, was handled by No. 22 Northwestern 67-50 in a Big Ten game in the Lady Lions’ Bryce Jordan Center in State College.

Saint Joseph’s, which was to have been playing the back end of the a reversal of the La Salle road trip, was postponed with its game at St. Bonaventure off Friday’s similar postponement with Duquesne when the Hawks came up with a positive test in their daily COVIS-19 protocol. Their game was one of 13 Sunday either postponed or cancelled. Several other teams played missing members, who were in quarantine.

Delaware Sweeps Hofstra: The Blue Hens (9-1, 6-0 CAA) led wire-to-wire and is the only conference team to win every game it has played in the league as they dropped the Pride to 4-8 overall, and 2-4 in the CAA.

Jasmine Dickey wasn’t as explosive as in Saturday’s win, but potent enough with 18 points, eight rebounds, four steals, and two assists. Overall across the two games, she averaged 27.5 points.

Freshman guard Ty Skinner scored 12, while Ty Battle had nine point, 11 rebounds, and five steals, Lizzie Oleary had eight points and nine rebounds, and Chyna Latimer scored eight.

Hofstra’s JaKayla Brown scored 26, shooting 10-for-18 from the floor.

Next up for Delaware in the conference is a pair of home games Saturday and Sunday in the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark, tipping off 1 p.m. each day and televised on the Flohoops streaming ap.

La Salle Snaps Losing Streak to Duquesne: The Explorers bounced back on the winning end following Friday’s loss at St. Bonaventure, getting enough leads to sustain the pursuing Dukes (2-7, 1-4 A-10)  and shutting them down in the final minutes in the Atlantic 10 road game to snap a six-game losing streak dating to the last previous win in 2014.

Kayla Spruill, who had missed five games before returning Friday, was even better, Sunday, scoring 24 points, off 7-of-14 from the field, including 4-of-8 from beyond the arc, while connecting on 6-of-8 from the line for La Salle (6-7, 2-4). Claire Jacobs scored 15 points, while Deja King scored seven. Molly Masciantonio dealt six assists, while committing just one turnover and made a few critical plays with the game in the balance.

A defensive key was outscoring Duquesne 12-2 in transition gaining points off turnovers, though the home team dominated the boards 41-29.

The Explorers got off on a right note in the first quarter, allowing just six points, the lowest total in any quarter this season.

La Salle next is back home in Tom Gola Arena this weekend with two conference games, hosting George Washington on Friday followed by a visit from George Mason on Sunday.

Drexel Forced Into Split by William & Mary: A 16-2 run in the second quarter enabled William & Mary to control the Dragons and gain a split in their weekend back-to-back series as Drexel (6-3, 3-1 CAA) suffered its first conference loss and first overall of the three losses that was decisive.

Hannah Nihill paced the visitors with 18 points, helped by a career-high with four treys on seven attempts. Tori Hyduke, a transfer, had her best day with her new team, scoring 11 points, primarily courtesy of connecting with three from deep. Kate Connolly scored eight and set a career mark with four blocks, which was also a game high.

Mariah Leonard had eight points and seven rebounds for the visitors, Maura Hendrixson dealt five assists, and Keishana Washington grabbed seven rebounds.

The Tribe (5-6, 2-4) produced a triple threat in their offense, Sydney Wagner scoring a game-high 22 points, while Bre Bellamy scored 19, and Bailey Eichner scored 13.

Drexel is back home in the Daskalakis Athletic Center for its next pair, this Saturday and Sunday hosting Elon, which hit preseason favorite James Madison with a decisive loss on Sunday. The series will be televised on the Flohoops streaming apps.

Penn State Crushed by Northwestern: The No. 22 Wildcats pulled away from a close game early in the visit to the Lady Lions, going on to a Big Ten victory, holding Johnasia Cash to 14 points and eight rebounds, and Makenna Marisa to 12, while not yielding double digit scoring to anyone else on the home team.

Former Villanovan Kelly Jekot did not play for Penn State (4-6, 1-5 Big Ten), due to an injury not related to the current coronavirus striking a slew of teams throughout the NCAA across the country.

“We have a tall task ahead of us,” said Penn State coach Carolyn Kieger, saying Jekot’s injury was season-ending, and “we have to figure out how to make up for her scoring, minutes, and rebounding.

“Our team was definitely feeling that tonight, and I’m excited for three or four days of practice to be able to fix that and get in sync without her on the court.

“We’ll have to figure out how we’re going to revamp and figure out how we’re going to make up for that loss by committee. We’re one of the youngest teams in the country, so when you lose that experience and lose that vet, it’s going to hurt until until we have time to regroup and figure it out.”

Veronica Burton had 19 points for Northwestern (7-2, 5-2), which is coached by Father Judge graduate Joe McKeown, who previously coached George Washington for a long stint in the Atlantic 10. Lindsay Pulliam scored 17, Sydney Wood scored 13, and Courtney Shaw grabbed 12 rebounds.

The Lady Lions are scheduled to play at Rutgers, their long-time rival, Thursday, however, the Scarlet Knights have been on a pause due to positive testing, with Monday’s visit from No. 19 Indiana postponed. In fact, with that situation, the next local scheduled to be on the court is Temple, visiting Houston, Wednesday, in an American Athletic Conference game at 1 p.m.

Rider Stopped From Sweep: What started out great Saturday for the Broncs, did not fare so well 24 hours later, losing to St. Peter’s and settling for a split in the MAAC.

On the other side, the triumph enabled the Peahens (6-9, 5-5 MAAC) to snap a six-game overall losing streak on their current schedule. The visitors took the lead for good finishing the first quarter on an 11-2 run against Rider (2-13, 1-9).

The Broncs mounted somewhat of a rally in the fourth quarter as they had been successful with in Saturday’s win, closing a 14-point deficit to five with a minute remaining in regulation.

But the visitors were able to hit foul shots the rest of the way preventing any further incursion.

Freshman Makayla Firebaugh scored 13 for the home team, while reserve Lenaejha Evans scored 11.

“It’s a disappointing loss,” said Rider veteran coach Lynn Milligan. “We did not get the job done today. We wanted to build on our success yesterday, but we did not have an answer for Taiah Thornton (30 points). We did not shoot the ball particularly well either and both those things hurt us in the end.”

St. Peter’s win on the road in the series was the first in nine seasons since 2012. 

It doesn’t get easier this weekend, other than the slight comfort of being home, with Qinnipiac set to visit Saturday and Sunday.

And that’s the report, local edition, with the national edition to follow later, unless it is already late in the night when you are reading this one.