Women's Basketball Wins Third Straight with 71-62 Defeat of Bucknell

Box Score (pdf) | Highlights

Bronx, N.Y. -- The Fordham women's basketball team won its third straight contest, and sixth in its last seven, with a 71-62 victory over Bucknell on Sunday afternoon at the Rose Hill Gym. Redshirt freshman Bre Cavanaugh tallied a season-high 22 points on an efficient 8-for-13 shooting from the field, her third 20-point game of the campaign, while four Rams finished in double-digit scoring, as well, including Lauren Holden's 14 points, tying her season-high. The win improves Fordham to 7-3 on the year, while the Bison fall to 6-4.
 
"Today was a great win over a well-coached and balanced Bucknell team," Head coach Stephanie Gaitley said, "I was proud of the kids responding to a big win at St. John's and following that up with a hard-fought win today. They passed their basketball final during exam week!"

The Rams struggled with their shot to begin the game, being held without a basket until the 2:20 mark of the first quarter, but finished the frame on a 5-0 run to trail the visiting Bison by seven, 16-9. Fordham turned it around immediately after that, stretching that run to 17 unanswered points en route to a 25-13 second period score, took a 34-29 margin into the halftime break, and cruised to the nine-point victory in the second half. Fordham is now 5-0 this season at home after finishing last year's campaign with a 16-3 record in the Bronx. In fact, under Coach Gaitley, the Rams are 76-24 all-time in the Rose Hill Gym.
 
The Bison got things started nearly two minutes in with a layup by Kyi English and the visitors would hold that lead for the next 12 minutes. Bucknell worked up a 12-2 lead before Fordham's first basket, a Mary Goulding layup off a nice feed from G'mrice Davis. Up to that point, just two free throws, one by Davis and one by Kendell Heremaia, had been all the scoring for the Rams, as they missed their first seven shots of the game and turned the ball over three times. With 1:13 left in the first quarter and trailing, 16-4, it was a short 5-0 run by Holden and Heremaia to get to nine points and avoid having a season-low of points scored in a single frame this year.
 
Fordham turned things around with 12 unanswered points to begin the second period, first with a Bre Cavanaugh layup and then a three-pointer, her first points of the game, then tying the game up at 16-all with a Johanna Klug layup. Lauren Holden's spot-up three from the top of the key early in the shot clock gave Fordham the lead, 19-16, and later in the frame, the junior guard would take the lead back for good with a layup, 27-26.
 
The Rams would trail by no fewer than five points the rest of the way and would win the next two quarters are well, each by two points. The Bison made a late charge, with a 7-0 run across a minute of action to get within five, 63-58, with a little under three minutes to play. Klug grabbed a critical offensive rebound with two minutes to play to reset the shot clock and the Rams saw out the rest of the contest with solid free-throw shooting, which up to that point had been an issue all game long. Fordham hit 8-of-10 free throws in the fourth quarter but just 5-of-12 in the other periods.
 
Over quarters two and three, Fordham combined for 19-for-28 shooting (67.8%) with 5-of-7 shooting from behind the arc. The hosts had shot just 3-of-13 in the first quarter. The Rams finished with a season-high 52.0% shooting from the field on the afternoon, but struggled from the charity stripe, hitting just 13-of-22 attempts overall (59.1%), a new season-low. The Rams had come into the game ranked second in the Atlantic 10 and top-50 in the country with their free-throw shooting.

G'mrice Davis' double-double streak was snapped at eight straight games to begin the contest, falling just one rebound shy. The senior still scored 13, dished out three assists, and notched a team-high two steals across 34 minutes. Lauren Holden, the nation's leader in minutes played, once again went the distance, the seventh time this year already, and was one short of her career-high for assists, finishing with a season-high six.
 
Cavanaugh's 22-point effort was her second straight 20-point game. The redshirt freshman averaged 21.0 points and 5.5 rebounds this week, leading the team in scoring in each win. She did so on 15-of-31 shooting (48.4%), 4-of-9 from downtown (44.4%), and 8-of-12 from the charity stripe (66.7%).
 
Fordham now sets its sight on a big Wednesday night match-up, welcoming #11/12 UCLA to the Rose Hill Gym with tipoff set for 7 p.m. The A-10 Digital Network and WFUV will carry live coverage.