LOUDONVILLE, NY – Senior guard Sarah Olson (Freehold, NJ/Howell [NJIT]) led the Monmouth University women’s basketball team with 13 points, but the Hawks fell at league-leading Siena, 64-54, Friday morning at the Alumni Recreation Center. With the loss, the Hawks fall to 5-10 (3-3 MAAC), while the Saints improve to 10-7 (7-0 MAAC).
Olson did her damage on 5-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-7 from long range. Christina Mitchell (Baltimore, MD/MATHS) added six points, seven rebounds, three blocks, two assists and two steals, while Jamiyah Bethune (Union, NJ/Union [Penn State]) chipped in with seven points, six rebounds and two steals. Jasmine Walker (North Brunswick, NJ/North Brunswick) had seven points, while Jasmine McCall (Manalapan, NJ/Manalapan [Seton Hall]) and Tyese Purvis (Queens, NY/Francis Lewis [Monroe C.C.]) scored six points apiece. McKinzee Barker (Bomont, WV/Clay County) dished out a game-high seven assists.
Kollyns Scarbrough and Jackie Benitez led Siena in the scoring column with 13 points apiece, while Meghan Donohue had a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds. Emmanuella Edoka made her presence felt with eight points and nine rebounds, five on the offensive glass. Joella Gibson matched Barker with seven assists for the Saints.
“We kept battling. We’d go down by 10 and then we would cut it and we were in a great position in the fourth quarter,” said Monmouth Head Coach Jenny Palmateer. “Then the wheels fell off in that last minute or minute and thirty or so. They went on that 9-0 run and we just could never really recover from that. Against Siena, you have to be able to maximize everything, be really solid, and we just made a few too many mistakes in that stretch.”
Olson hit a pair of three pointers to stake Monmouth to a 6-0 lead in the early going before Siena scored 10 of the next 12 points to take a 10-8 advantage. After the Hawks tied the game on a fast-break lay-up from Walker off an Olson lead pass, Siena outscored Monmouth, 11-3, over the final four minutes of the period to take a 21-13 lead after one and never trailed again.
Mitchell started the second quarter with a putback, before Karolina Severova followed with a right wing three on the Saints’ fifth field-goal attempt of the possession following four offensive rebounds to give Siena its largest lead of the first half, 24-15. Monmouth scored nine of the next 11 points on a Danica Dragicevic (Belgrade, Serbia/XV Beogradska Gimnazija) right wing three, baseline jumpers from Barker and McCall and a Walker lay-up to cut it to 26-24 with 3:09 remaining in the half. Siena scored the next four points, before Olson knocked down a 15-foot left-wing jumper with three seconds left to cut the deficit to 30-26 at the break.
Olson led the Hawks with eight points at the intermission, while Walker added seven. Benitez led the Saints with seven points, while Scarbrough and Edoka had six points apiece. Edoka also grabbed eight rebounds in the first half, as Siena enjoyed a 25-14 edge on the boards, including a 10-4 advantage on the offensive glass.
Siena scored nine of the first 11 points to open the second half and extend its lead to 11 points, 39-28, with 6:29 to go in the period. Still trailing by 11, Monmouth went on an 8-0 run, including four points from McCall, to cut the deficit to three, 43-40. Donohue got inside for a lay-up with 15 seconds left in the third to give Siena a 45-40 lead after three.
A pair of three-pointers from Purvis, the second coming at the 1:53 mark of the fourth quarter, cut the Siena lead to three. But the Saints broke the Hawks’ press on their next possession for a Benitez lay-up and Siena scored the next nine points to put the game away.
For the game, Siena outshot Monmouth, 40.7 percent (24-59) to 35.5 percent (22-62) from the floor and 86.7 percent (13-15) to 75.0 percent (3-4) from the free-throw line. The Hawks took a 30.4 percent (7-23) to 21.4 percent (3-14) from long range. The Saints took a 43-32 advantage on the boards, a 16-9 edge in second-chance points and a 36-16 discrepancy in points in the paint. The Saints’ bench also outscored that of Monmouth, 27-18.
The Hawks return to league action in New York Sunday, when they face Marist. Opening tip from McCann Arena is slated for 2 p.m.
