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Women’s Hoops Advance to Semifinals with Lucky No. 13
February 27, 2009
Sophomore Jessica Fink led all Keuka scorers with 14 points.
Keuka College’s women’s basketball team knocked off its first opponent in the North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) Tournament with a nine-point (53-44) victory over the No. 7 seeded Crusaders of the University of Dallas on Friday. The quarterfinal game was played at SUNY Cobleskill.
Keuka, trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament they made it to in 2006-07, have now won 13 straight games as they stand at 15-7 overall. Dallas finishes its season at 6-19 overall.
Keuka used its balanced scoring attack and ferocious defense to secure its 13th straight win. The Storm have now given up 50 or fewer points in nine of its current 13 wins. The Storm defense caused 29 Crusader turnovers that led to 20 Keuka steals.
Neither team was able to score much in the opening half as Keuka clung to a two-point lead 18-16 at the break. The Storm then outscored Dallas 35-28 in the second period to secure the win. The two teams combined to hit just three 3-pointers with Keuka tallying two of them.
Sophomore Jessica Fink (New Oxford, PA/New Oxford) scored a team-high 14 points while hitting the two Keuka 3-pointers. Fink was 5-for-8 from the floor. Classmate Nadia Madmoune (Rome, N.Y./Rome Free Acad.) was the only other Storm player to reach double figures with 11 points. Madmoune missed a double-double by one rebound as she grabbed six offensive boards.
Senior Angela Viggiani (Kent, N.Y./Albion) pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds while junior Melissa Thurston (Batavia, N.Y./Batavia) added seven boards and seven steals. Sophomore Courtney Lincoln (Waterloo, N.Y./Waterloo) netted nine points to go with her four assists.
Dallas was led by Cara Sczepanski who tallied a game-high 19 points while going 11-for-16 from the free throw line.
The Storm will now square off against the No. 3 seeded Spartans of D’Youville College this Saturday, Feb. 28 beginning at 1 pm. The game will again be played at SUNY Cobleskill. The Spartans defeated Penn State-Harrisburg (74-52) in its quarterfinal game on Friday.
