Women's Basketball Wraps Up Regular Season with 22-Point Win over Saint Joseph's

Bronx, N.Y. – The Fordham women's basketball team wrapped up the regular season with a resounding 22-point win over Saint Joseph's on Saturday, 67-45, behind a season-high 30 points from Bre Cavanaugh and the joint-second-most steals in program history, 17. With the win, the Rams improve to 19-10 overall and 11-5 in Atlantic 10 play and cement their third-place position heading into next week's A-10 Championship. Fordham will host these same Hawks on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the first round.
 
"Great team win to finish off regular season play." Head coach Stephanie Gaitley said, "It was capped off by a terrific offensive performance by Bre. We need to tweak a few things and get ready to take on Saint Joseph's on Tuesday."
 
Cavanaugh got off to a scorching start, hitting her first five field-goal attempts over the opening five minutes and scoring the team's first 12 points of the contest. Her hot start bled into 30 overall points with the junior matching her career-high of 12 made field goals, coming on just 18 attempts, hitting 3-of-6 from deep and 3-of-4 from the line to go with a team-high seven rebounds plus two assists, two steals, and a block over 36 minutes.
 
Both teams shot above 60% in the first quarter, with Fordham holding a slim 22-20 advantage, but the Rams defense locked down after that, limiting the visitors to just 25 combined points over the next three frames, while scoring 45. After a slow start to the second, Fordham's offense again started to click and outscored Saint Joseph's 15-4 overall in the second, leading to a 37-24 halftime lead.
 
Lula Roig started the game off with an unassisted jumper but was answered almost immediately by Cavanaugh with a layup from Kaitlyn Downey. Cavanaugh knocked down a three following a Roig turnover and Saint Joseph's head coach Cindy Griffin called the game's first timeout less than four minutes into the contest after Cavanaugh drained a midrange jumper to make it 9-4. Tough Cavanaugh hit another three to push the lead to six, 12-6, out of the break, the Hawks fought back to tie the game with back-to-back triples from Mary Sheehan and Katie Jekot. Saint Joseph's took its final lead of the game through a Gabby Smalls layup on the next play. It was Fordham's freshman starting duo that tied the game and then took lead for good on back-to-back steals and layups, first Sarah Karpell stripped Nailah Delinois and then it was Anna DeWolfe doing the same to Delinois on the next possession. Small would get within one by hitting one of two free throws but DeWolfe and Downey would combine for six points before Gartner's very late three brought the visitors within two at the end of the frame.
 
It was Heremaia's turn to strip a Hawk and coast in for a layup, doing so by stealing the ball from Elizabeth Marsicano a minute into the second. DeWolfe drilled a three half a minute later leading into a scoreless period for both teams over the next several minutes. Roig snapped the drought with a layup and sandwiched a Cavanaugh jumper with one of her own with 2:18 left to play and a five-point deficit, 29-24. From that point on, it was all Fordham as the Rams rattled off an 8-0 run on 4-of-5 shooting. The run was punctuated by three consecutive steals and makes by the Rams in the final 80 seconds. Downey caught an errant Roig pass and assisted on a Cavanaugh layup, then Cavanaugh stripped Devyne Newman as DeWolfe knocked down a jumper, and finally at the end of the game clock, Downey picked up another steal and it was Karpell who beat the buzzer with a layup from DeWolfe.
 
The lead never dropped below 10 from that point on and ballooned to as much as 18 in the third and 23 in the fourth. Midway through the third, two Hawks baskets were met with immediate threes by the Rams, one from Downey and one from Cavanaugh, and Heremaia's floater with 90 seconds to go was the final point of the period. The lead crossed the 20-point threshold for the first time on DeWolfe's three to begin the fourth and remained there after a Megan Jonassen layup with 7:28 to play. Catherine Polisano's jumper in the waning moments capped the game's scoring.
 
DeWolfe notched her 12^th league game with double-digit scoring, finishing with an efficient 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting, adding three assists and three steals over a team-high 37 minutes, the first time a player other than Cavanaugh has shared or led the game in minutes played. Downey handed out a career-high eight assists, tied for the most by a Ram this season, to go with seven points, five rebounds, and four steals, the latter matching her personal-best for a fifth time. Heremaia was held to just six points but came up with three steals and two rebounds, as well. Nine different Rams tallied at least one steal in the contest.
 
The Rams shot an even 50.0% from the field (28-of-56) and 37.5% from deep (6-of-16), while sohoting 5-of-6 from the charity stripe. The Hawks shot 42.9% overall but were held to identical 22.2% percentages in the second and fourth frames (2-of-9). There were just 43 combined rebounds, with Saint Joseph's holding the advantage, 23-20. The Hawks committed 24 turnovers, however, with Fordham scoring 25 points off them. The Rams had 13 turnovers to 15 assists.
 
With her second triple, Cavanaugh became the sixth Ram to hit 200 career threes and with her third trey, she moved up to fifth with 201, passing Suzanne Maguire ('97). The team is now up to 212 made threes, as well, currently fourth-most all-time in program history.
 
Fordham reestablished itself as the Atlantic 10's top scoring defense, passing the Hawks during the game. The Rams have allowed just 55.7 points allowed per game during the 2019-20 campaign.
 
The Rams will look for their 20^th win of the year, which would make it seven in nine seasons, and four straight, under Coach Gaitley, when they host the Hawks on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ESPN+ and WFUVSports.org will carry coverage.