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The Rams can certainly say that there's no place like home for the holidays. Coach Gaitley's squad won its ninth consecutive game and improved to 6-0 in the Rose Hill Gym on Sunday afternoon, downing UNC-Greensboro, 79-48, in the first game of the 2013 Fordham Holiday Classic.
The Rams' ninth straight win surpasses their longest winning streak from a season ago and ties the second-longest in school history, a nine-game streak during the 1992-1993 campaign. One more win would tie the longest streak in program history set in 1978-79.
Fordham's 10-2 mark ties the record for the best start to a season in school history, set by the 1976-77 squad.
Erin Rooney led the way for the Rams in the convincing victory, scoring a game-high 16 points while dishing out eight assists and pulling down seven rebounds.
Rooney was one of four Rams to finish the game in double figures.
Emily Tapio put up 14 points and four boards,
Abigail Corning tallied 11 points and six assists, and
Samantha Clark scored all 11 of her points in the latter stanza.
Freshman
Hannah Missry connected on two attempts from downtown, finishing the game with 8 points.
For the second straight game, the Rams did a superb job sharing the basketball. After assisting on 24 of their 27 field goals at Manhattan, the Rams registered a dime on 22 of their 30 baskets, turning in an astounding 22-to-11 assist-to-turnover ratio.
The Rams held their opponent to 49 points or fewer for the fifth straight game, lowering their A-10 best scoring defense average to 56.3 points per outing.
Fordham's defense pulled out all the stops in the early going, holding UNCG off the board for the first four and a half minutes of the game and jumping out to an 8-0 lead. Rooney scored four of those eight points for the Rams.
A
Briana Jordan three-pointer capped a 7-3 run for the Rams to make it 15-5 with 11:35 left in the half, but the Spartans responded with five in a row to cut to the Fordham advantage to its slimmest margin since just over three minutes into the game.
Ahead 18-12 at the eight and a half minute mark of the first half, the Rams opened up the game over the next several minutes. Missry connected on her second three-pointer of the game to make it 21-12, kicking off a 13-4 run and putting the Rams up 31-16 with 5:06 left until the break.
Fordham kept the pressure up over the half's closing minutes, taking a 39-20 lead into the locker room.
Tapio led all scorers with 12 in the first half and four Rams chipped in six points apiece in the opening stanza.
Already up by 19 coming out of the intermission, the Rams wasted no time to start the second half, opening the period on an 8-2 tear to move ahead 47-22 in just 90 seconds.
The Rams continued to build the lead over the next ten minutes, climbing ahead by 33, 67-34, just inside the ten minute mark.
33 would mark Fordham's largest lead of the game, an advantage they held several more times over the remainder of the contest.
Every Fordham player who dressed for the game saw the floor over the closing minutes, and the Rams took game one by a final margin of 79-48.
The Rams will face the winner of this afternoon's second game between Harvard and Tulsa at 3:00 PM tomorrow in the Rose Hill Gym.
