Pace Women’s Team Cruises to a Win Over the Ravens
The 2017-18 season could not have started much better for the Pace women’s basketball team, which won eight of its first nine games. But ever since that torrid start, victories have been hard to come by.
In fact, prior to last Wednesday evening’s home game against Franklin Pierce University, more than a month had passed since the Setters last walked off the court victorious and their once-impressive record had dropped all the way down to .500.
But against the Ravens, the Setters used a pair of 16-2 runs, one in each half, to cruise to a much-needed 84-54 rout at the Goldstein Fitness Center. Allie Monteleone and Geena Rosalbo combined for 38 points to lead five players in double figures as Pace put an emphatic end to its six-game losing streak.
“I think tonight was big because we executed a little bit better,” said Setters head coach Carrie Seymour shortly after her team had improved to 9-7 overall and 6-3 in the Northeast-10 Conference. “We’ve been struggling to execute our stuff.”
The Setters turned up the defensive pressure against a Franklin Pierce team sorely missing starting point guard Hannah Everidge and in the midst of its own losing streak that had reached six games. After the Ravens opened up the second quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers by Demi Akins and Jemma Thacker that turned their 21-17 deficit into a two-point lead, Pace answered with the first of its 16-2 spurts and never trailed again.
An old-fashioned 3-point play by Jackie DelliSanti, who had seven points in the Setters’ second-quarter burst, started the run and gave Pace the lead for good. By the time Rosalbo concluded the blitz after making one of her four steals and then scoring on a layup, the Setters’ lead had grown to 37-25 with just over two minutes left in the half.
“We played a little bit better, purposely on defense instead of running around trying to survive,” said Seymour. “I feel like the last six games we played some good teams, but we were just trying to survive possessions. Today we looked like we actually played more with a purpose.”
The Setters, leading 38-30 at halftime, opened the third quarter with two quick baskets from Rosalbo. Franklin Pierce was still within 48-38 late in the period after a layup by Claudia Tucci before Pace answered with three successive buckets — a foul-line jumper by Iliana Krasniqi, a put-back by Italee Brown-Smikle and a baseline drive by Lauren Schetter — that opened up a 16-point cushion.
Schetter’s follow-up of a Rosalbo miss in the final seconds of the third quarter gave Pace a 56-41 lead and began the second of the Setters’ 16-2 runs. Monteleone, the junior guard who finished with a game-high 20 points, had seven of them during the fourth-quarter blitz. Her conventional 3-pont play with 8:35 to play gave Pace a 63-41 advantage.
The Setters opened up their largest lead of the night, 32 points, after consecutive 3-pointers 35 seconds apart by Brown-Smikle, who contributed 13 points in just 13 minutes of playing time. Pace, with its frequent full-court pressure, wound up forcing 24 turnovers by the Ravens.
“They’re missing their strongest point guard,” said Seymour. “She’s been out for a while. That’s an area where they’re definitely weak. They’re definitely not very deep in the backcourt. So we felt like this was a game we could get our defense going again and hopefully that takes some of the pressure off the offense.”
During their long losing skid, the Setters dropped all but one of the games by five or fewer points. Seymour, now in her 26th year at the helm, was forced to watch in frustration as one nail biter after another slipped away.
“We haven’t been able to finish them off,” she said. “The one good side is that we didn’t play well at all and most of them were still last-possession games. Only Southern New Hampshire got to be a bigger lead. So if there’s a bright side, that’s it.”
After witnessing so many down-to-the-wire finishes in the last month that didn’t go the Setters’ way, it would seem the huge second-half lead the Setters built against Franklin Pierce must have finally provided a few moments for Seymour to savor on the team’s bench.
Apparently, not so.
“It’s not relaxing,” she answered with a laugh. “It’s never relaxing. But, like I said, it was good to see us executing things and play with a purpose on defense.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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