Lady Pioneers Drop Season Finale

David Otero

Sports Editor

The women’s basketball team was unable to close out the regular season on a five game win streak, as it dropped its final game on Saturday, March 2 on the road against the Molloy Lions 64-57. With the loss, the Lady Pioneers have an 18-8 overall record, with an 11-7 record within the conference. They head into the East Coast Conference Tour­nament, which begins tonight, as the fourth seed against Saint Thomas Aquinas College (13-15).

Against the Lions, neither squad could get into an offensive rhythm through the first half as the score was evened up at 22 at the break. Both teams traded buckets during the final 20 min­utes of play, but the Lions made the shots when it counted late in the contest. During the final 5:40 of the second half, the Lions went on a 17-8 run, smothering the Lady Pioneers on defense and hit­ting shots on offense.

Junior guard Alexis Peters led the Lady Pioneers in three categories with 14 points, 12 rebounds and four assists. With her performance, Peters regis­tered her first double-double of the season. Junior guard Jalicia Connell was the only other Lady Pioneer in double figures as she added 10 points on 4-10 shooting from the field.

Senior forward Nicolette Marciniak had a rough after­noon, going 3-10 from the floor scoring only seven points; the least she has scored in a game dating back to the sixth game of the year against Pace University on December 8 when she had only five points. Although she struggled shooting the ball, Mar­ciniak hauled in 13 rebounds, which is the eleventh time she has grabbed at least 10 rebounds in a game this season.

The biggest reason the Lady Pioneers did not win the game against Molloy was due to the poor shooting display as a team. The Lady Pioneers went 21-68 (31 percent) from the floor, and had next to no luck from beyond the arc as their 3-25 clip (12 per­cent) would indicate. In addition, the Lady Pioneers also did not win the rebounding battle, which is a key to victory for LIU Post. The two teams actually tied each other with 47 rebounds apiece.

The Lady Pioneers begin the first round of the ECC Tour­nament tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Pratt Recreation Center against the Saint Thomas Aqui­nas Lady Spartans. Pregame begins at 6:15 p.m. on 88.1 FM and WCWP.org.