Women's Basketball Cruises to 60-50 Win over Rhode Island on Kids Day

Bronx, N.Y. – In front of a 3,200 sellout Rose Hill Gym crowd made up of local schoolchildren, fans, and family, the Fordham women's basketball team led for nearly the entirety of Wednesday's contest in a 60-50 win over Rhode Island. In the 39^th meeting between the two schools, this win made it six straight and tipped the rivalry in favor of the Bronx Rams, 20-19, all-time. It also improved Fordham's record to 14-8 overall and 6-3 in Atlantic 10 action, while Rhody fell to 11-10 and 4-5, respectively.
 
"A big 'thank you' to Nick Lamarca, Kim Mallow, Stephanie Martinez, and Allie Keller for all their hard work today for a 'Kids Day' sellout against a very tough Rhode Island squad," Head coach Stephanie Gaitley said, "A great exclamation point on National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Anna came through after not feeling well and we got great minutes from Zara. Great team win and a great start to the second half of our conference schedule."
 
Rhode Island took a brief 4-3 lead early in the game but it would be their lone advantage on the day. Fordham rattled off 12 unanswered points after that until a last-second jumper by Davida Dale fell to end the first period with Fordham leading, 15-6. The game couldn't have started better for the home Rams, with Kaitlyn Downey intercepting a bad Maia Moffitt pass and hitting a three on the other end off a feed from Sarah Karpell, one of her team-high four dimes. Dale and Nicole Jorgensen combined for back-to-back buckets over a 40 second span but the offense went cold from that point on, being held to 3-of-13 shooting in the frame by the Fordham defense. Anna DeWolfe scored seven straight points to start that 12-0 run, Zara Jillings scored under the basket following a Karpell steal, and the latter assisted on Kendell Heremaia's three from the top of the key on the team's final offensive possession of the quarter.
 
Rhody was able to bring the deficit down to five, 17-12, with a 6-0 run midway through the second, but the Rams ripped off a 17-5 run to finish the half. Bre Cavanaugh started the run with a jumper, Jillings added a corner three, and Vilisi Tavui fed Heremaia for a layup to return the advantage to double figures, 24-14. Over the next four minutes, the only scoring came from 4-of-4 shooting at the free-throw line by Cavanaugh before Downey drilled an open three to make it a 17-point game. Following an Erin Jones three to break the drought with 11 seconds left, DeWolfe raced down the other end and saw an acrobatic lay-up attempt fall in while getting fouled. The freshman converted the freebie to double Rhody's score at the intermission, 34-17.
 
The visitors cut the deficit down to 11 by the end of the third quarter with a 21-15 period. Rhody started the half off with a 10-2 run over the first five minutes to get within nine. Out of the media timeout, Cavanaugh hit another pair of free throws, as did DeWolfe, and a Heremaia triple pushed the lead back to 16. Rhode Island closed the quarter on an 11-6 run.

Fordham never led by less than eight points the rest of the way. Cavanaugh and DeWolfe combined for all 11 points in the frame, with Cavanaugh's big three with 2:36 to play, assisted by DeWolfe, providing the exclamation mark.
 
DeWolfe led the way with 18 points on an efficient 6-of-10 shooting with three rebounds and a steal over 34 minutes. Cavanaugh played all 40 minutes, scoring 17 on 5-of-18 shooting and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe, adding seven rebounds. Heremaia finished two rebounds shy of a double-double, providing 10 points and a team-high eight boards, plus two steals, over a career-high 39 minutes. Zara Jillings provided 20 solid minutes off the bench with a season-high seven points on 3-of-3 shooting, with five rebounds and the team's lone block. Downey chipped in a game-high three steals, while Karpell had a pair of steals to go with her four dimes.
 
Fordham shot 40.4% from the field compared to Rhody's mark of 33.9%. From long range, the hosts shot just 28.0% but held the visitors to 3-of-15 from behind the arc (20.0%), while hitting all 11 free-throw attempts for the second time in the last three contests. Rhode Island outrebounded Fordham, 36-28, but lost the turnover battle, 13-10.
 
Fordham returns to the road for Saturday's contest at Massachusetts at 1 p.m. ESPN+ and WFUV 90.7 FM will have the call.