Borelli Posts Double-Double in 51-45 Loss to Bentley

Borelli Posts Double-Double in 51-45 Loss to Bentley

WALTHAM, MA. – The Merrimack women’s basketball team suffered a 51-45 loss to Bentley College Tuesday night at the Dana Center in a Northeast-10 Conference game.

Merrimack started strong behind three-pointers from Ashley Brownlee (Portland, ME) and Amanda Shannon (North Andover, MA) to take a 6-2 lead, but the Falcons responded with a 17-2 run to take a 19-8 lead midway through the first half.

Trailing at the half 26-19, the Warriors came out strong, led by Kara Borelli (Westbrook, ME) who sank four straight free throws to cut the lead to two at 33-31 with 11:30 remaining.

Bentley recovered and went on an 11-2 run capped off by a three-pointer from Angela Manfredi to extend the host’s lead to 11 points with 6:22 to play.

Merrimack came right back, scoring the game’s next eight points, including a Borelli lay-in and a fast-break lay-up by Takeya Faison (Lynn, MA) from Brownlee to cut the lead to three at 44-41 with 1:47 left.

Bentley iced the game from there converting its late free throws, scoring the game’s next five points to extend its lead to eight with under a minute to play.

Borelli led the Warriors, posting a double-double on 16 points and 11 boards and converted all ten free-throws she attempted. Shannon added 11 points with Brownlee chipping in eight.

Erica Kirwan posted 13 points and seven rebounds while Kristy McLean grabbed 11 rebounds.

Both teams combined for 54 turnovers while shooting a combined 33.6%

The Warriors (2-7, 0-5 NE-10) visit Southern Connecticut Friday night (5:30 p.m.), concluding their pre-holiday schedule.