The Guru Report: Saint Joseph’s Rolling to History; Overtime Dooms Temple, LaSalle and Penn

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

PHILADELPHIA — Picking up to round up the rest of the weekend with the locals Saturday and Sunday.

 

For Saint Joseph’s where we were at on Saturday before moving back over to Penn later in the early evening, Villanova, which also had its annual alumnae reunion; Princeton, Lehigh, Lafayette, Delaware, and Rutgers, there was joy.

 

We’ll deal those first.

 

As for the other six, in three situations, missed opportunities would be the mildest way to state how it went for La Salle, where we were Sunday, Temple, and Penn which all had controllable leads that evaporated leading to overtime setbacks.

 

On Hawk Hill at Hagan Arena, Saint Joseph’s completed a dodge the bullet week, grinding out a challenge from UMass 77-67 to stay a half-game on top of the Atlantic 10 heading into showdown Thursday night at George Mason in Fairfax, Va.

 

Laura Ziegler missed her second game with an unspecified injury, though a source said more for caution and should return for the next game.

 

Despite her absence, the depth showed with Talya Brugler lighting the way with 30 points shooting 10-14 from the field, including a make from deep, 9-11 from the line and seven rebounds and four assists for the Hawks (21-2, 10-1).

 

A win on Thursday would not only turn aside a team contending for the No. 1 seed in next month’s A-10 tournament in suburban Richmond, but it would also equal the best ever start in the program 22-2 set in 1976-77.

 

The Hawks snapped a four-game losing streak in the series.

 

Mackenzie Smith was also in double figures with 14 points, while Chloe Welch scored eight and all five others in the game scored combining for 25 points and 16 rebounds.

 

Despite how the outcome reads, the Minutewomen (3-20, 1-10) belied their record staying close until the final minutes paced by Alexsia Rose who was 10-20 from the field with 22 points, Bre Bellamy scored 12, and Stefanie Kulesza and Kristiin Williams each scored 10.

 

It was just the fourth time in the last 15 years Saint Joseph’s won against an opponent shooting 50 percent.

 

Credit it to 19 assists on 24 baskets and an abundance of foul shooting with proficiency at 24-28 from the line compared to 1-3 from UMass.

 

“I just think we have very good shooters,” Hawks veteran coach Cindy Griffin said of the success this season in that category.

 

Cats Claw Pirates Villanova maintained fourth place in the Big East and completed a series sweep beating Seton Hall 69-41 Saturday at Finneran Pavilion as Lucy Olsen had 21 points and a career-high 10 assists for the Wildcats (14-8, 7-4), who didn’t make a foul shot for the first time since Jan. 16, 2015, though they only had four chances.

 

Bella Runyan scored 11, Zanai Jones had 10 points and eight rebounds, while Christina Dalce off the bench had 10 points and nine rebounds.

 

Seton Hall (13-9, 5-6) had just one player in double figures, Azana Baines scoring 10 points.

 

The Wildcats next play Saturday going for a sweep of Marquette when they travel to Milwaukee.

 

Rutgers Ends Big Ten Skid: The Scarlet Knights (7-17, 1-10) made it to the victory column for the first time this season in the Big Ten winning by the narrowest margin 71-70 at Nebraska (14-8, 6-5) Saturday in Pinnacle Bank Arena as Kassondra Brown scored 21 points with five rebounds and four assists, and Destiny Adams had 11 points and six rebounds.

 

Chyna Cornwell grabbed eight rebounds.

 

Rutgers, which last won a game in early December, in the only Tuesday night local game hosts Maryland at 8:30 p.m. in Jersey Mike’s Arena on the Big Ten Network in Piscataway, N.J.

 

Meanwhile from the high side, locally, in the conference Penn State’s rally fell short Saturday night, losing 80-75 at home to Michigan (15-8, 6–5) in the Bryce Jordan Center in State College, ending a six-game win streak.

 

Transfer Ashley Owusu achieved her 1,500 career point and scored 18 points, shooting 6-8 from the field for the Lady Lions (16-6, 7-4).

 

Leilani Kapinus had 15 points with 10 rebounds, Makenna Marisa scored 11, and Shay Ciezki scored 13.

 

On Thursday PSU travels to No. 3 Iowa to take on Caitlin Clark and the rest of the Hawkeyes.

 

Princeton Stays Ivy Perfect: The No. 25 Tigers completed a weekend sweep Saturday night to continue their hold on first in the Ivy League (17-3, 7-0) completing the first half of league play by beating Brown 76-63 at home in Jadwin Gym.

 

Chet Nweke had a career high 18 points, reigning Ivy player of the year Kaitlyn Chen had 17 points, six rebounds, four assists, and two steals, and Skye Belker had nine of her 11 points in the second half against the Bears (13-7, 4-3).

 

Princeton heads to The Palestra Saturday to play Penn 2 p.m.

 

Patriot Power: Lehigh and Lafayette Saturday picked up home wins in the league, Lehigh edging Boston University 64-62 at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa., while Lafayette topped Army 68-64.

 

In the game at Lehigh (13-8, 5-5), Ella Stemmer grabbed a missed layup from the Terriers (13-7, 5-5) as time expired.

The winning basket from Remi Sisselman came with 2:10 left in regulations as the winners barely survived a scoreless drought the rest of the way.

 

Stemmer scored 13 points, Meghan O’Brien and Sisselman each scored 12, and Lily Fandre had 11 points.

 

Lehigh opened the game on an 11-0 run.

 

The Mountain Hawks next travel to their rival Lafayette Saturday at 2 p.m.

 

In the win by the Leopards (8-13, 3-7), Abby Antognoli had 22 points and Kayla Drummond had a career-high 19 against the Black Knights (9-11, 6-4).

 

Delaware Wins Drexel Loses: Sunday was a split day for the two local teams in the Coastal Athletic Association, Delaware winning 82-59 at Hofstra while Drexel fell 75-62 at William & Mary.

 

In the win in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island, by the Blue Hens (8-13, 4-5), their 17^th straight over the Pride (7-13, 1-8), Ande’a Chrisier had 17 points and seven boards, Chloe Wilson scored 13, Nakiyah Mays-Prince scored 12, as did Klarke Sconiers, and Tara Cousin scored 10.

 

Delaware next hosts William & Mary Friday at 7 p.m. at the Bob Carpenter Center at 7 p.m. in Newark.

 

The Tribe (10-10, 6-3) will be coming off a standings tie-breaking win against Drexel (10-10, 5-4) in Williamsburg, Va.

 

In the game in Kaplan Arena the visiting Dragons got 14 points from Hetta Saatman and 13 from Chloe Hodges.

 

Drexel is off until Sunday hosting N.C. A&T at 1 p.m. at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

 

Overtime Bad Time: As for the remaining local trio, we start Saturday night with Penn at The Palestra where everything up to a certain point had gone great coming into the weekend.

 

Trailing Brown by two games as the Ivy first half schedule came to a conclusion, the Quakers head-to-head went through the Bears like a machine and as expected on Saturday as noted above Brown fell at Princeton.

 

In the old-style back-to-back Ivy switch Yale had taken its medicine from the Tigers Friday night and on Saturday the Quakers jumped on the Bulldogs for a double-digit advantage in the firs quarter.

 

But that was the high-water mark as the game played out.

 

It became a struggle though scoring-wise Stina Almqvist had 20 points, nine rebounds, three assists and four steals. Mataya Gayle, the dynamic freshman, scored 18, of which 12 came from four makes from deep, while Jordan Obi had 17 points and seven boards. Lizzy Groetsch scored nine.

 

Perhaps Penn (11-9, 3-4) would have sunk sooner than the 74-68 final were it not for the Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde act from Yale’s Jenna Clark who had 25 on the night but kept sustaining life for the home team shooting a mediocre 6-12 from the line.

 

Yale (5-15, 2-5) also had help with 19 points and 10 rebounds from Brenna McDonald, and 10 points and 13 rebounds from Nyla McGill.

 

Still, Penn went up five under the two-minute mark but then missed a shot, the Bulldogs scored and when Penn didn’t answer with 18 seconds left in regulation, the Quakers defended a three-point lead well until an assignment got loose.

 

In an eyelash of time the shot from deep was launched and connected sending the game into overtime and downhill from there.

 

“Very difficult to handle right now,” Quakers coach Mike McLaughlin said softly. “We had our opportunities tough one for that unit in there and it's a tough one for us as a coaching staff.”

 

Of the play that got it into overtime, he said, “She hit a heck of a shot.  I thought we defended it well, but it became a little bit of a loose ball situation.

 

 “I think we came off our player a little bit there obviously, and I think we really guarded their execution, but they got to a scramble mode.”

 

Penn did get one game closer to pass Brown and get into the four-team Ivy Madness field at Columbia next month but for now it’s a smaller margin for error.

 

“ I thought we had a good weekend,” the Penn coach said period. “But this is a really difficult one to swallow.”

 

Which brings us to Sunday and segue into La Salle coach Mountain MacGillivray’s first remarks following the Explorers’ 72-69 overtime loss at home at Tom Gola Arena to Dayton in the Atlantic 10.

 

“This one really hurts,” he said.

 

For all the struggles with a young roster a recent spurt had La Salle (7-14, 4-6) in the hunt for a seed carrying a first-round bye in next month’s tourney. The top four get double byes.

 

The pain came from the fact that the Explorers built a 12-point lead on the Flyers (10-12, 4-7) in the third period only to lose it off some horrid foul shooting 8-18 as a team magnified by normally reliable Makayla Miller who was 4-10 from the line.

 

She scored 10 and made the play that got La Salle in the extra period after the Dayton had been ahead.

 

Molly Masciantonio had an outstanding day for the locals with 18 points while Jolene Armendariz and Nicole Melious each scored 11.

 

Dayton had a 52-38 rebound advantage, but the Explorers took control of the basket.

W

“We did a lot of good things, you’re suppose to win that game,” MacGillivray said. “You can’t shoot 44 percent from the free throw line. We needed one or two more of our threes to go in.”

 

La Salle hosts Loyola Chicago Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

 

Which brings us to Temple (12-10, 6-4), which held a double-digit lead at Charlotte (13-9, 6-4) Sunday only to lose 88-81 in double overtime in the American Athletic Conference.

 

Had the Owls won they would have been in a three-way tie for first, the highest at this stage in over a decade. But if they get on streak, they are in a five-way tie for second one game back, so there is room to land in any of the three postseason tourneys pending what they do the rest of the way.

 

Tarriyona Gary had 16 points off the bench for Temple, Aleah Nelson had 13, Ines Piper had 11, and reserve Tristen Taylor had 10.

 

A key test is Saturday, the Owls’ next game, when they host conference favorite South Florida at 3 p.m. at the Liacouras Center.

 

And that’s the report.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 @rrrr