By SPENCER BATES
BRONX, NY — Coming out of the halftime break, the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team was riding high.
It had established a 41-29 lead over Fordham in the early goings of the second half and were in the midst of a 29-8 scoring run.
The Bonnies were feasting in the Bronx.
That was until the Rams’ defense, which had caused some problems in the first quarter for its guests, reemerged with renewed energy. What had been a game firmly under Bona’s control, slipped away and in the blink of an eye as its double-digit lead was flipped into a 66-53 loss.
After giving up an early run to start the second half, Fordham reasserted itself into the contest with a 14-2 run to close out the third quarter — shaving a 12-point deficit to just two with one quarter left.
Unfortunately for the Bonnies, the wind remained in the sails of the Rams as they emphatically slammed the door shut with a 23-8 fourth quarter.
Save for the second quarter, when Bona had its most successful stretch of the game, the Fordham defense was absolutely suffocating. It caused chaos and confusion with its high press and as a result forced 28 turnovers — a season-high tally for the Bonnies.
Bona head coach Jim Crowley, as of late, has been urging his players to be more aggressive and to not settle while in possession. It was a lack of that intensity that he saw as the main reason behind the mountain of turnovers.
“Really disappointed in just our aggressiveness, offensively, in the first quarter, the last five of the third quarter, and the entire fourth quarter,” Crowley said. “We were tentative and then we just made some bad decisions. I mean, (we had) 28 turnovers. … We gave ourselves a chance, we just put a lot of pressure on ourselves with that many turnovers. … We had a bad stretch where we had three straight turnovers, and we came back and got three or four really good shots, and none of them dropped. And when you’re on the road, you get a lot of pressure to get stops. And to (Fordham’s) credit, they shared the ball really well and knocked down some big shots.”
The Rams’ Emma Wilson-Saltos and Lakresha Edwards shared the game-high point tally, each finishing with 16 on the afternoon. But it was Wilson-Saltos that stole the spotlight by tacking on 16 rebounds for a double-double.
For the Bonnies, Aaliyah Parker led the team in scoring for the second consecutive game, netting 15 points. She stuffed the stat sheet with seven rebounds, three steals, two assists and a block. However, she also led the team with seven turnovers.
Laycee Drake was the only other Bona player to finish with double-figures, scoring 11 in the game. However, the lack of double-figure scoring does not mean Crowley was without positive minutes from other sources. Notably, Olivia DiFranco and Brianna Barr-Buday garnered praise from their coach after they managed to produce in the time they had on the floor.
“(Olivia) and Bri Barr-Buday gave us some good minutes in the first half,” Crowley said. “Specifically, I thought, for 25 minutes we really guarded. On the road, specifically, you got to finish games off. You got to play really hard. And in the second half they played a little harder than us.”
Ultimately, as Crowley pointed out, the game came down to decision making. And once the Fordham defense began to wreak havoc, Bona’s poor decisions only continued to stack up.
The visitors had managed to cut it a two possession game with under a minute to go, but one final 8-0 run from the hosts put a stamp on the result.
“We usually attack (the press) pretty well, we just didn’t in that first quarter,” Crowley said. “I thought we did really well in the second quarter, even in the fourth, but we made really bad decisions at the tail end of (possessions) that ended up being turnovers. … We were up 12 in that third quarter. When you’re on the road and you’re up 12, you gotta find a way to put it away.”
St. Bonaventure will have the chance to get back in the win column next on Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. when it is set to host George Mason.
