BOX
SCORE
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Ashara
Carrington (Marblehead, Mass.) totaled 15 points to lead
the Southern New Hampshire University women's basketball team to
Wednesday night's 58-54 win over Saint Anselm College in a
Northeast-10 contest at Stoutenburgh Gymnasium. The Penmen,
who halted a two-game slide, are now 11-12 overall and 7-9 in the
NE-10, while the Hawks are now 8-13 and 5-11 in the league.
SNHU has now won six in a row and
nine of its last 10 meetings with Saint Anselm.
Carrington was 6-10 from the floor
and converted all three of her free throw attempts. She now
needs just 56 points to reach the 1,000 career point
milestone. Christine Duffy (South Boston,
Mass.) was 2-3 behind the arc and finished with 10 points.
Jenny McDade (Derry, N.H.) added nine points,
while freshman Deborah LaValley (Rochester, N.H.)
finished with a season-high seven points.
Epiphany Smith led all scorers with
22 points for Saint Anselm, connecting on five of her 11
three-point attempts, while Megan Howard added 10 points and seven
rebounds.
Tied 45-45 with just under four
minutes to play after a 6-0 Saint Anselm run capped by a pair of
Smith free throws, the Penmen would take the lead with 3:40 left on
a drive to the basket by McDade. With 1:49 remaining and SNHU
clinging to a 49-47 lead, McDade knocked down a three from the left
corner to put the Penmen up five. Smith's drive to the basket
on the next Hawk possession was unsuccessful, and Duffy would sink
a pair of free throws with 1:13 left to make it 54-47.
Morgan Frame would convert a layup
with 52 seconds to play to pull Saint Anselm within five, but
Carrington responded at the other end to put the Penmen up seven
with 32 seconds remaining. Erin Higgins would sink a pair at
the line with 11 seconds left for the Hawks, but Duffy sealed the
win with a pair at the line with 10.3 seconds left. Smith
would hit a three at the buzzer to account for the final.
Trailing 25-21 at halftime, the
Penmen opened the second half on an 8-0 run, and a conventional
three-point play by Carrington with 16:57 to play gave the guests a
29-25 lead. The game would then see a pair of ties and three
lead changes before the Hawks used five straight points to build a
39-35 lead on a Howard basket with 11:09 on the clock.
Southern New Hampshire countered with 10 unanswered points, and a
free throw by McDade with 6:37 left gave the Penmen a 45-39 lead.
The Penmen jumped out to a 7-2 lead
just 2:27 into the game following a three-pointer by LaValley, but
the Hawks would use a 9-0 run to take an 11-7 lead with 13:28 left
in the first half following a three-pointer by Smith. Saint
Anselm took its largest lead, 19-12, with 8:38 left on a basket by
Courtney May. Southern New Hampshire pulled within two,
23-21, with 48 seconds to go before intermission on a
Sloane Sorrell (Berwick, Maine) layup, but Frame
answered on the other end and the hosts took a 25-21 lead into the
locker room.
After shooting just 6-27 in the
first half, Southern New Hampshire was 13-22 (59.1%) from the floor
over the final 20 minutes. The Penmen, who were outrebounded
34-30, made nine more trips to the free throw line, going 15-22
while the Hawks were 9-13 at the stripe. SNHU also turned the
ball over just 11 times, its second-lowest total of the season,
while forcing 18 Hawk giveaways.
Southern New Hampshire returns to
action Saturday when it travels to top-ranked and unbeaten Franklin
Pierce University for a 1:30 contest.
