Olean, N.Y. – The Fordham women's basketball team continued its stretch of dominant defense in league play with a 53-44 win at St. Bonaventure on Saturday afternoon, the team's sixth straight win and sixth Atlantic 10 road win of the year. With the victory, the Rams improve to 19-8 overall and 10-3 in league action, while the Bonnies fall to 7-18 and 4-8, respectively.
"Winning on the road is tough, especially after a long week," Head coach
Stephanie Gaitley said, "I'm super proud of our team's toughness. We have grown a lot in the last few weeks and are playing our best defensive basketball. It will be fun to see how good we will be once we can make shots consistently!"
Fordham used a dominant third period and gutsy defense down the stretch to grind out today's nine-point victory. It is the sixth season under Coach Gaitley in which the program has enjoyed double-digit league victories. The Rams led for nearly the entire contest, holding a lead for 34.5 minutes. The Bonnies fought back to tie things up at halftime and took a quick lead to begin the second half but
Mary Goulding drained a three in response and the visitors never trailed the rest of the way.
Fordham held a pair of four-point leads in the first quarter as
Bre Cavanaugh started off brightly, scoring seven of the team's first 10 points. A Bree Paulson three erased a three-point lead but
Kendell Heremaia responded with a three and a Goulding free throw on the next possession made it four, 16-12, which held for the final two minutes until Deja Francis's late layup led to a 16-14 visitor advantage after the opening 10 minutes. Following a
Lauren Holden triple with 5:31 to play in the half, the hosts closed the frame on a 7-2 run with the Rams held scoreless over the final four minutes.
Asianae Johnson quickly put St. Bonaventure up with a pull-up jumper to start the second half but Holden found Goulding for a three-point heave that dropped for the go-ahead points. The make sparked a 10-2 run for the visitors with threes from Heremaia and Holden during the stretch. The Bonnies scored twice in the final two minutes to get within four but Heremaia gave the Rams a six-point cushion, 37-31, with a last-second layup.
The Bonnies would not go quietly and continued to whittle down their deficit, getting within two, 41-39, with 4:37 to play. However, from that point on, the Fordham defense clamped down and held St. Bonaventure without a field goal until a Johnson jumper with 10 seconds to go. During that time, Holden sank her third three of the night to give the Rams some breathing room, 44-39, and
Kaitlyn Downey canned an open baseline jumper to make it a seven-point game. From that point on, it was a series of free throws from either team, with Fordham finishing the game 7-of-8 from the line.
Goulding led the way with a game-high 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, to go with seven rebounds, two assists, and two steals over 36 minutes. Cavanaugh finished with 13 points, three boards, and three dimes, plus a steal, and Holden chipped in 11 points, four boards, and two assists across all 40 minutes. The senior recently broke the program's all-time minutes played record and is up to 4,226 for her career. Heremaia scored eight points with six boards and Downey notched five points, seven rebounds, and a season-high three assists.
The Rams were slightly outshot, 34.6% to 33.3%, but drained eight three-pointers and converted 13-of-18 free throws, the fourth-most makes on the year. Fordham won the battle of the boards for a 22
nd time this season, 36-33, with nine coming on the offensive glass.
Fordham returns to the Bronx for its final two regular season contests at home, starting with Senior Day next Sunday afternoon, February 24
th, at 2 p.m. against Massachusetts. Seniors
Mary Goulding and
Lauren Holden and graduate student
Alexa Giuliano will be honored with a pregame ceremony.
