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Big Weekend for Hoops Teams
February 15, 2013
Keuka College's women's and men's basketball teams close out the regular season Saturday afternoon with NEAC contests at Wells College (photo courtesy of Erik Holmes, Keuka College Sports Information Department).
The basketball regular season comes to a close Saturday afternoon, when the Storm’s women’s and men’s teams travel to Aurora, N.Y. for a North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) doubleheader.
Heading into the last games of the regular season, this much is known about the Storm’s postseason fate: the women (18-3, 15-1 NEAC) have claimed the North Division championship for the second time in three seasons and have earned the No. 2 seed for the upcoming postseason tournament, which comes with a bye into the semifinals.
Lancaster Bible College (20-4, 15-2) wrapped up the South Division with a win Friday night, and the Chargers will host the six-team tournament. Despite the Storm having a better conference record, Lancaster Bible clinches the top seed and the right to host based on owning the head-to-head tiebreaker against Keuka thanks to a 58-50 win over the Storm on Jan. 7.
Keuka’s first playoff game would occur on Feb. 23 against an opponent TBA.
The men (10-12, 8-6) need a win over the Express (11-13, 7-7) to earn the program’s first postseason appearance since the 2009-10 season, when Keuka won the play-in game over Cazenovia College before falling to Wells in the NEAC quarterfinals.
The women tip off vs. the Express (12-12, 11-5) at 1 p.m., followed by the men playing at 3 p.m.
Live stats are available for both games by visiting http://livestats.prestosports.com/wells/
Both NEAC tournaments start Feb. 19, with the semifinals on Feb. 23 and the championship game on Feb. 24. The winner of the postseason tournament earns the conference’s automatic qualifier into the NCAA Division III tournament.
For the women’s tournament, the top three teams from each division qualify for the postseason.
Keuka’s women have represented the NEAC in the NCAA tournament in four of the last six years.
Keuka’s women are coming off a tough 64-44 non-conference loss at SUNY Geneseo Tuesday night. The Storm fell behind 13-2 and trailed 27-15 at halftime before using a 15-9 run to pull within 36-30.
But the Blue Knights went on a 9-0 run and snapped the Storm’s 12-game win streak.
Sophomore Erica Pendrak (Utica, NY/New York Mills) matched her season-high with 16 points and shot 63.6 percent from the floor, but no other student-athlete reached double-figures.
Junior Danielle Gravel (Sidney, NY/Sidney) scored all nine of her points in the second half and added five rebounds and classmate Jessica Bandrowski (Center Moriches, NY/Center Moriches) added 7 points, 4 rebounds and 3 steals for the Green and Gold.
Senior Mariah Mouzon (Elmira, NY/Elmira Free Academy) scored six points and sits 12 points away from becoming the 10th student-athlete in school history with 1,000 career points.
Junior Jessica Bandrowski leads the Storm in scoring, assists and steals, and she ranks 14th nationally in steals and 29th in assists per game (photo courtesy of Erik Holmes, Keuka College Sports Information Department).
For the season, Bandrowski leads the Storm in scoring (15.4 ppg.), assists (4.8) and steals (4.0), and she ranks third in rebounding (4.6).
Bandrowski, who ranks second in the NEAC in assists, third in steals and seventh in scoring, also ranks 14th nationally in steals and 29th in assists per game.
Gravel ranks second on the Storm in scoring (15.1), and both she and Bandrowski are tied for the team lead in made ‘3s’ with 40 apiece.
Mouzon leads the Green and Gold in rebounding (8.2) and is third in scoring average (11.5), while Pendrak is second in assists (2.9 apg.) and fourth in scoring (9.0 ppg.).
Keuka is outscoring its opponents 70.1 to 60.1 and is connecting on 39.8 percent of its shots while limiting the opposition to 35.2 percent shooting.
Wells is led by junior Ashley Roser (20.4 ppg., 16.8 rpg.), who leads the NEAC in both scoring and rebounding average, and who leads all of Division III student-athletes in rebounds per game. She has averaged 29.3 ppg. and 21.7 rpg. over the last three contests, and has 21 double-doubles on the year, also tops in the country.
The Storm have won all five matchups with the Express by a margin of 67.6 to 43.6, including a 73-56 decision at home on Jan. 16.
Keuka’s men suffered a 74-71 setback at SUNYIT last Saturday, despite getting double-doubles from sophomore Trevor Healey (Wethersfield, CT/Wethersfield) and freshman Casey Williams (Syracuse, NY/Jamesville-DeWitt).
Healey scored 26 points with 12 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the year, while Williams added 12 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double in the loss.
Keuka sits alone in second place in the NEAC North, one game up on both Wells (11-13, 7-7 NEAC) and SUNYIT (9-15, 7-7 NEAC).
The top two teams from each division, along with the third-place team with the better head-to-head record qualify for the postseason.
Morrisville State (18-5, 12-2) has wrapped up the top seed and will host the five-team tournament. The Mustangs are the defending conference champions, but Keuka handed Morrisville a 59-50 loss back on Dec. 5.
Sophomore Tyler Hixson and the men's basketball team need a win over Wells Saturday to earn the program's first postseason appearance since the 2009-10 season (photo courtesy of Erik Holmes, Keuka College Sports Information Department).
If Keuka beats Wells, the Storm will finish second in the North and will earn the No. 4 seed for the postseason tournament, and will host a quarterfinal game on Feb. 19.
If Keuka falls to Wells, the Storm would have the same conference record as Wells, but the Express would hold the tiebreaker after sweeping the season series with the Storm.
Keuka would then be the No. 3 team in the North, but would lose out on the head-to-head tiebreaker with Penn State-Harrisburg (10-14, 7-6 NEAC), the No. 3 team in the South. Harrisburg knocked off Keuka 80-72 on Jan. 13.
Healey leads the Green and Gold in scoring average (13.7) and rebounding (7.5), while senior Teddy Tuggles (Rochester, NY/Gates Chili), who recently became just the 10th student-athlete in school history to score 1,000 career points, ranks second in scoring (13.5) and leads the team in assists (61), steals (26) and made free throws (105).
Healey and Tuggles rank 10th and 11th, respectively, in scoring average in the NEAC, while sophomore Jared Wagner (Pittsford, NY/McQuaid) leads the conference in three-point shooting percentage at 46.5 percent (47-for-101). Tuggles also leads the NEAC in made free throws.
Wells is led by a trio of student-athletes who average in double-figures: E.J. Taylor (16.2 ppg.), Jonathan Hurtado (15 ppg.) and Al Paul (10.1 ppg.).
The Express have won two straight, but are being outscored by an average of 72 to 67.1. Opponents are shooting 45.1 percent while Wells is connecting on 40 percent from the floor.
Keuka is 1-8 all-time versus Wells, including an 83-65 home loss on Jan. 16. The Storm’s only win over Wells was a 61-60 decision on Feb. 10, 2009.
