Feb. 17, 2007

 Video Highlights

Box Score

BRONX, NY - The La Salle University Women's Basketball team earned a hard-fought 66-54 victory over the Fordham Rams Saturday afternoon in Atlantic 10 action at Rose Hill Gym, as senior Crista Ricketts notched her eighth double-double of the season and added her name to another part of La Salle history.

 

Ricketts scored a team-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor and knocking down 4-of-5 free throws. She also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds for her 21st career double-double. In the process, she became only the sixth player in La Salle history to score at least 400 points (she has 454) and grab at least 200 rebounds (203) in the same season, and the first since Chrissie Donahue more than 10 years ago (1995-96).

 

The win also gave La Salle nine road wins, the most since the 1991-92 squad won 10, but it did not come easy.

 

Through the game's first 10 minutes, neither team built more than a three-point advantage, and the teams traded the lead 10 times. When freshman Jamie Walsh hit a short jumper with 9:45 left before the half, La Salle led 15-14.

 

Fordham (3-23, 1-11 A-10) then scored 10 straight points in less than two minutes sparked by back-to-back threes by Daniela Roark and Beth Troutt. Lisa Carroll, who scored 33 points in the first meeting between the two schools, then got on the board with back-to-back baskets, and with 7:40 left, the Rams were up 24-15.

 

The Explorers went back to Ricketts to end the run. She had scored eight of La Salle's first 11 points, then scored four in an 8-3 La Salle run, as the Explorers got the deficit down to four points after senior Jenna Graber's second three of the half.

 

But it was Fordham that owned the three-point shot in the first half, knocking down 5-of-10, and they also shot 50-percent from the floor in the first half, opposed to La Salle's 34-percent (9-26) as the Rams led at the break, 31-25.

 

It was a totally different story in the second half, as the Explorers held Fordham to just 27-percent after halftime, 12-percent from behind the arc (2-17), while they hit 12-of-22 shots, 3-of-7 from three.

 

La Salle (17-10, 5-7 A-10) came out of the locker rooms and scored the first five points, on a sophomore Tara Lapetina three and a fast-break lay-up by junior Melanie Gibbons off a steal and assist from junior Carlene Hightower which cut the deficit to one.

 

Then Lapetina tied the game at 36-all with another three, but after, Fordham turned to LaToya Chalmers. Sent to the bench in the first half due to foul trouble, she scored seven straight Ram points in 7-2 run to put Fordham back on top 43-38 with 12 minutes left in the game, but she picked up her fifth foul just 23 seconds later.

 

That is when La Salle clamped down on the defensive side, and used a 20-4 run to take command of the game, allowing only two baskets by Fordham's Lindsey Kingsland in a span of 11 minutes.

 

They started with three straight points from Ricketts, before one Kingsland basket; then responded with a Ricketts basket followed by back-to-back scores by Hightower which put La Salle up 48-45 with 8:09 remaining.

 

Kingsland brought Fordham to within one, but a 10-0 run over the next six minutes started by a basket by junior Meghan Ahl and capped by two free throws by the local product put La Salle up 58-47 with one minute left in the contest.

 

All that was left was foul shots, as Lapetina converted four, getting her into double figures with 10 points, three assists; Walsh hit a pair, for seven points; and then Graber, giving her 11 points to go along with her four assists. Hightower ended the game with nine points and nine boards, while Gibbons had six points and five rebounds.

 

The Explorers return to the court, Thursday night, when they host Charlotte at Tom Gola Arena with a 7 PM tip, then host Saint Louis, Sunday with a 1 PM start for Senior Day.