Feb. 7, 2009

Box Score

Garden City, N.Y. - The Adelphi University women's basketball team squeezed out a 56-52 victory over NYIT on Saturday afternoon at the Center of Recreation and Sports. Freshman forward Theresa Foley led the Panthers with 16 points and with the victory as Adelphi snaps a three-game slump. The Panthers improve to a 10-11 overall record and 7-5 in East Coast Conference play while the Lady Bears fall to a 2-19 overall record and 1-11 in the ECC.

The Panthers were hot out of gate in the first half by going up by 11, 15-4, ending on junior Hunter Marek lay-up with 13:39 remaining in the first half. The Lady Bears responded over the next three minutes, cutting the deficit to seven points 22-15 with 8:40 left in the half. Adelphi fired back, going on a 10-3 run of their own, to go up, 32-18, their largest lead of the contest on the back of two Serita Lee lay-ups with 2:39 on the clock. Down by 14 points, the Lady Bears trimmed the Panther lead to seven points, 32-25, heading into the locker room.

Six second-half turnovers plagued the Panthers early on, as the Lady Bears went on 14-6 run in the opening seven minutes of the second half. The run gave the Lady Bears their only lead of the contest, 39- 38 with 12:50 remaining. In that span, juniors Madison Robertson and Torlanda Poindexter accounted for the first 12 of their teams 14 points. The lead only lasted for 15 seconds as senior guard Lisa Manetta pushed the ball up the floor and found sophomore forward Ashley Caiafa wide open on the left side where she drained the three to put the Panthers up, 41-39, with 12:35 left.

With three minutes left on the clock and the Panthers up by six, 50-44, the Lady Bears went on a 4-0 run to cut the margin to two points on a Robertson jumper with 1:42 left. The Lady Bears missed a potential game-tying jumper with 57 seconds left. Then Travers found a cutting Foley, who scored the final two of her 16 points, on a lay-up with eight seconds remaining to seal the victory for the Panthers.

For the Lady Bears, Robertson led all scorers with 17 points and had six rebounds while Poindexter contributed 15 points. Travers and Lee each grabbed 12 rebounds for Adelphi in the win.

The Panthers return to action Wednesday, February 11, as they host St. Thomas Aquinas at 5:30 p.m.