Women's Hoops Suffers Second Home Loss, Downed by Pace
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.- The Merrimack women's basketball team fell 65-54 to Pace Saturday afternoon at Volpe Gym. The Warriors sink to 7-9 on the year and 5-7 in Northeast-10 action. The Setters improved to 15-4 overall and 9-4 in league play.
Tiffany Colon (Lawrence, Mass.) and Kelly Schatzlein (Tolland, Conn.) each contributed 13 points to the Warriors' cause. Gennifer Roy (Granby, Mass.) finished with 10 points on the day while Sarah Benischek (Shrub Oak, N.Y.) pulled down 11 rebounds.
Colon drained a pair of triples to open the scoring for Merrimack, putting the home team ahead 6-4 in the opening moments.
After Pace drained a three-pointer to go up 9-6, Benischek came up with a clever inbound play and earned a trip to the free throw line. The senior inbounded the ball off of a defender's back, grabbed it and was fouled on the resulting layup. Benischek converted both shots from the charity stripe to pull the Warriors within one with 15 minutes remaining in the period.
Benischek connected on a trey from the top of the key midway through the opening half to give Merrimack a 17-15 lead.
The two teams were at a stalemate after 20 minutes of play with both sides tallying 29 points.
The Warriors were led by Colon with six points in the first frame. Roy and Benischek each went into intermission with five points to their credit.
Merrimack shot 36.4% from the field while sinking half of its bids from downtown. The Setters owned a 37% field goal percentage and drained 33.3% of their attempts from behind the arc in the first stanza.
The Warriors and Setters went back and forth in the beginning of the second half. Pace went on a 17-0 run to gain a 19-point edge to mark the first double-figure lead of the game.
A triple by Roy snapped the scoring drought and sparked a rally that pulled Merrimack to within nine of the visitors.
Four made free throws by the Setters down the stretch helped seal the victory.
Merrimack shot 41% from the floor in the second half and finished the game with a 38.6% field goal percentage. Pace sank 48% of its field goal attempts in the second frame while making 57% of its shots from three-point range. The Setters ended the contest with a field goal percentage of 42.6%.
The Warriors held the advantage on the glass, holding a 33-32 margin in rebounds over Pace.
Merrimack will look to end the three-game skid as it travels to Southern Connecticut for a Northeast-10 Conference road matchup January 25.
