Women's Basketball Stays on the Road to Battle Saint Anselm on Wednesday
Complete Game Notes (pdf)
The Particulars: The Merrimack women's basketball teamis back on the road for a game against conference foe Saint Anselm onWednesday night at 5:30 pm. The Warriors are coming off of an 81-70 loss at the hands of Stonehill while the Hawks are coming off of an 59-46 loss to the Bentley Falcons.
ABOUT MERRIMACK: The Warriors are led by Kelly Schatzlein who is averaging 17.0 points and 9.6 rebounds per contest. Schatzlein is coming off of a career best performance of 28 points and 10 rebounds against Stonehill on 12-13 from the field. Genn Roy is the teams second leading scorerat 13.6 points and 3.0 rebounds per contest.The freshman guard duo of Chloe Rothman and Allison Wagner have performed well so far as Wagner is averaging 8.4 per contest while Rothman is scoring at a 7.0 point per game clip.
ABOUT THE COMPETITION: The Hawks enter Wednesday's contest with a 5-2 (1-2 NE-10) record after dropping thier last contest to bentley. The Saint Anselm is led offensively by Epiphany Smith who is averaging 17.1 points and 3.1 assists per game. Megan Howard is hard to handle down low as she is averaging 14.9 points and 11.1 rebounds per contest so far this season.
ALL-TIME SERIES: The Warriors are 23-36 all-time against Saint Anselm including winning both matchups last season by a combined score of 127-110.
1,090 AND COUNTING: Senior guard Gennifer Roy got back on track against Stonehill as she scored 12 points on 6-12 from the field. With her performance on Sunday, Roy moved into 13th place on the all-time scoring list with 1,090 career points. Roy is just 71 points shy of entering the top ten on the Merrimack womens basketball scoring charts. The senior has led the team in scoring three times this season.
SCHATZLEIN SCORES CAREER-HIGH 28 POINTS AGAINST STONEHILL: Junior forward Kelly Schatzlein put together a career day on Sunday against Stonehill as she racked up a career-high 28 points on 12-13 from the field. Schatzlein has recorded 10 rebounds to go along with four steals and three blocked shots for the Warriors. Schatzlein was a perfect 4-4 from the free throw line and a perfect 4-4 from the field in the second half. Schatzlein is averaging a team best 17.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and two blocked shots per contest so far this season for the Warriors. Schtzlein is leading the Northeast-10 conference in field goal percentage shooting an amazing 68 percent from the field on the season including going 18-21 from the field this past week.
POINTS OFF TURNOVERS KILL WARRIORS AGAINST STONEHILL: The Warriors shot 56.9 percent from the field on Sunday but they were downed 81-70 by the Stonehill Skyhawks due to the disperity in points off of turnovers in the contest. The Skyhawks outscored the Warriors 31-10 on points off of turnovers. Each team had over 15 turnovers for the game as the Warriors had 21 and Stonehill had 15. Merrimack was unable to stop the Skyhawks from scoring after creating a turnover. The Skyhawks turned 10 first half Warriors turnovers into 22 points as they cashed in on every opportunity they had. In the second half the Warriors did a better job of turning the ball over and giving the opposition points as Stonehill only outscored the Warriors 9-6 off turnovers in the final 20 minutes.
NEWCOMERS GIVE SOLID PLAY ALONG SIDE SCHATZLEIN: The newcomers for the Warriors contributed 25 points on the afternoon as Jaclyn Lyons led the way with 10 points on 3-7 from the field and 3-3 from the line to go along with three assists. Allison Wagner continued her steady play as she scored nine points on 3-5 from the field, 2-2 from the free throw line and 1-3 from deep. Chloe Rothman set a career-high in the losing effort with six assists, recording half of the teams total for assists. Angie Michalski chipped in with a career-high four points, four rebounds and 15 minutes of action in the losing effort for the Warriors. As a group the newcomers came up with 25 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists, three steals and one block while shooting close to 50 percent from the field in the contest.
POINTS IN THE PAINT FAVORED MERRIMACK: The Warriors dominated the Skyhawks inside the paint as they outscored them 38-30 for the game including 24 points in the paint from junior Kelly Schatzlein. The Warriors held a slight edge in the points in the paint in the first half as they otscored the Skyhawks 20-18 through the first 20 minutes of play. The second half however the Warriors increased their margin by outscoring Stonehill 18-12, including a perfect 4-4 from the paint for Schatzlein. Genn Roy contributed in the first half with six points in the paint for the Warriors in the 81-70 loss on Sunday afternoon.
MERRIMACK'S NEW HEAD COACH MONIQUE LEBLANC: Monique LeBlanc is enterng her first season as head coach of the Merrimack Warriors. LeBlanc brings over seven years of division I coaching experience to North Andover. LeBlanc spent the last three seasons as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Northern Arizona University. LeBlanc also served as the teams academic mentor, Northern Arizona had a team GPA of 3.4 in 2010, which ranked 13th among all division I women's basketball programs. LeBlanc also spent three seasons as an assistant coach at her alma mater Bucknell where her team captured the Patriot league title in 2007 and 2008 and earned a NCAA Tournament Berth in 2008. LeBlanc was a two year captain of the Bisons as a player. She led her team to its first-ever Patriot League Championship and NCAA Tournament Berth, while compiling back-to-back 20 win seasons.
