LORETTO, Pa. (Dec. 21, 2008) – The Saint Francis women's basketball team overcame a slow start in which they were down 12-2 in the first five minutes of the first half and rallied to defeat the Long Island Blackbirds by a score of 71-48 on Sunday afternoon at DeGol Arena.
The Red Flash, who are 3-7 this season, are 2-0 in the Northeast Conference for the first time since the 2004-05 season.
The Flash went ahead by one point on a lay up by Janie Killian (Verona, Pa./Penn Hills) (Verona, Pa./Penn Hill) with 4:48 left to play in the first half and never looked back, stretching the lead 12 points as the two teams entered the locker room at half time with the Red Flash ahead 36-24.
SFU finished the first half shooting 50 percent from the field, and an astounding 80 percent from the free-throw line. They were also 2-for-4 on three-point shots.
The domination continued it the second half, and a three-point shot by Quinessa Johnson (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) put the Flash up by 24 points with 7:21 left in the game. The Blackbirds made a strong effort to overcome the double digit deficit, but were only able to shrink the lead to 18 points with 3:25 remaining.
Blackbird rookie Ashley Palmer, who has led LIU in scoring in 9 of their 10 previous games and has 7 double-doubles on the season, led the scoring with 21 points. The Flash kept Palmer one assist short of her 8th double-double as she finished with 9 rebounds.
Killian set a new career high with 4 blocks on the day, and also added 7 points and a team leading 10 rebounds. Head coach Susan Robinson Fruchtl had nothing but praise for the effort level of junior center, who scored the team's first points of the game for the second consecutive game.
“I think our team feeds off of her,” said Robinson Fruchtl. “Especially when she's diving on the floor, she's blocking shots, she's rebounding. The other kids, especially the athletic kids, they see that if she can do it they can do it.”
Britney Hodges (Dayton, Ohio/Mount de Chantal) (Dayton, Ohio/Mount de Chantal) led the Flash in scoring with 16 points, and also added 5 rebounds and 3 steals. Brittany Lilley (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) came one rebound shy of her first career double-double, finishing with 9 boards and 12 points. Samantha Leach (Mount Sterling, Ohio/Miami Trace) (Mount Sterling, Ohio/Miami Trace) rounded out the Flash players in double digits, with 10 points.
One area where the Flash showed much improvement was fouls, as they sent the Blackbirds to the line 8 times, and finished the day shooting 85.7 percent on free throws (12-14). SFU shot 42.2 percent from the field, and the Blackbirds finished the game at 39.3 percent. The Flash bench chipped in with 20 points, outscoring LIU by 10. They also took 28 points off of the Blackbirds' 22 turnovers.
Rebounding was another big improvement for the Flash, as they out-rebounded the Blackbirds 48-27. LIU was limited to just 11 offensive rebounds in the second half as SFU racked up 25 defensive boards.
“It's a lot of effort, heart and hustle,” said Robinson Fruchtl. “I'm so proud of our kids for doing that, especially coming back from Duquesne where we didn't do very much of it.”
After a short holiday break, the Red Flash will host Bucknell on December 28 in a 2 p.m. match up at DeGol Arena. They will then travel to Ohio to take on the Bearcats of Cincinnati on December 30 in a 7 p.m. match up.
