Women's Basketball Slays Drexel, 73-63, to Advance in WNIT

Bronx, N.Y. – Fordham women's basketball slayed the Drexel Dragons inside the Rose Hill Gym on Thursday night in the opening round of the WNIT, 73-63. The Rams improve to 19-12 overall and await the winner of Columbia and Fairleigh Dickinson for their second-round matchup.
 
Fordham used a big second-half effort, outscoring the visitors, 49-34, to overturn a five-point halftime deficit, including an eight-minute period without leading scorer Asiah Dingle due to foul trouble. It took awhile for both teams to get into a rhythm, each scoring 10 points over the opening 10 minutes and neither offense shooting better than 25% from the field. Both teams hit seven field goals in the second period but the visitors had three threes and a pair of free throws to make up the difference. For Drexel, Keishana Washington, the NCAA's all-time leading Canadian scorer, led the way with 21 points in the half.
 
The second half started on a positive note for the Rams, on Jada Dapaa's wide-open long two, but back-to-back three-pointers from Maura Hendrixson and Washington pushed the lead to its largest for the Dragons, 34-26, just two minutes in. From that point on, Fordham started to take over. Kaitlyn Downey hit a big triple from the top of the key, off a feed from Dapaa, that slowly built to an 11-0 run for Fordham over the next three-plus minutes as the Rams defense stymied Drexel. Colleen McQuillen's three with 4:32 left in the quarter proved to be the difference in the contest. Anna DeWolfe converted a three-point play a couple minutes later and McQuillen drained another trey late, although it was wiped away by a last-second Washington bomb. In between, Dingle picked up her third and fourth fouls and had to take a seat. While she was off the court, Fordham outscored Drexel, 15-12, on 66.7% shooting.
 
Drexel remained close for a long stretch but was never able to tie the game up. Two Chloe Hodges makes in the first few minutes got her team within one but Fordham responded each time, the latter on yet another McQuillen make from distance, the sophomore scoring all 11 of her points in the second half in critical moments. The Cresskill, N.J. native came up big again with a floater in the paint to extend Fordham's lead to four, 54-50, that ultimately grew to eight, 60-52, with 2:45 left, and eventually to double figures late as the Rams converted 15-of-16 freebies in the final period.
 
DeWolfe led the way with 22 points, Dingle notched another five steals to go with 16 points and four assists, and Dapaa produced her fourth double-double of the year, 12 points and 13 rebounds, four offensive, including her 1,000^th career rebound late. Sarah Karpell led the offense with five assists, while Downey contributed seven points, five rebounds, and four dimes. Off the bench, McQuillen finally reached double digits in scoring after hitting nine on six occasions, shooting 4-of-8 from the floor, 3-of-5 from deep. Matilda Flood also set a new career-high with 10 rebounds off the bench, two offensive, with three points and two blocks over just 14 minutes.
 
Fordham finished the game shooting 43.1% overall and 37.5% from behind the arc with 17-of-19 free-throw shooting, all in the second half, while holding the Dragons to 32.1% and 40.0%, respectively. Fordham won the rebounding battle, 42-31, including a 10-7 margin on the offensive glass.
 
Drexel's Washington set the record for most points scored by any player in the 98-year history of the Rose Hill Gym, scoring 43 points to best Ed Conlin's record set in 1953 by one. The record for an opposing player was Julius 'Dr. J' Irving in 1970, with 37.
 
Fordham, now 7-7 all-time in the WNIT, will face the winner of Columbia and Fairleigh Dickinson sometime between Saturday and Tuesday. Those two schools face off on Friday night in Manhattan. The WNIT will announce the second round matchups after all games are played.