By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The final day of the regular season always comes with its stressors.
It is hard to keep the mind from wandering to every corner of the conference, thinking about what may happen or what needs to happen to get a certain outcome. But at the same time, there’s really only one result anyone on the floor is in control of, and that is the one they are actively seeking out.
The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team had such a dilemma to work through on Feb. 28. A win would secure a bye in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Championship, but a loss would put its fate up in the air. Only adding to the stress, Fordham was the set opponent for its finale. A team that handed Bona a loss earlier in the season that left a poor taste in the mouth of head coach Jim Crowley as his side controlled the grand majority of the fixture before ultimately collapsing in the dying minutes.
The Bonnies had sweat it out as the Rams did not go down without a fight, but at the end of the day, their future was not put in the hands of anyone else, writing their own destiny by grabbing a 77-69 win.
“I thought we had really good pace and tempo with our offense and, defensively, we wanted to take away the basket,” Crowley said. “We wanted to keep them away from layups. We wanted to stop them from getting to the foul line, or going off offensive rebounds. To (Fordham’s) credit, that opened up 3-point shots, and they were very willing, and they shot it really well today from there. But I thought we executed our game plan really well. We were able to get some pretty good looks, and thankfully we put those down.”
The tension surrounding the affair was palpable and it was apparent that it had seeped into the game itself as turnovers were commonplace in the early goings. Some of which were the result of solid defense, but a number were real head-scratchers, coming off unforced errors.
Bona racked up 21 turnovers for the game and it was the relentless, hounding defensive pressure Fordham constantly utilized that was the main culprit.
“(Fordham) constantly tries to rush you,” Crowley said. “In a normal game, you get a rebound and you can kind of gather yourself and pass it out, or you can dribble it out. Here, you may take a dribble, and two people are coming running at you. You may beat the press and feel like you’re able to go, and then they send another defender at you. The press didn’t really impact us much. … A lot of times we were just quick with our feet. We hurried with the basketball when we didn’t need to.”
Fordham wasn’t without its fair share of turnovers either, picking up 16 over the course of the contest.
Crowley was proud of the effort his team showed on the defensive side of the floor. They took away the paint, nearly doubling the Rams’ scoring output in the category, 30-16 and forced them to figure out how to stay in the game from the outside looking in.
“If we’re aggressive on both ends, we give ourselves a way better shot,” Crowley said. “We’re not that team that can let someone drive and wait for a shot blocker. We’ve got to be in our positioning, and we’ve got to guard as a team really hard. And I thought for the most part, we did that.”
St. Bonaventure’s Gabby Robinson (14) attempts a contested jumper against Fordham. Robinson scored five points for the Bonnies in their win over the Rams. (Spencer Bates)
The biggest deficit Bona faced all game was five points, which was established early in the first quarter. The sides jostled leads back and forth throughout a good portion of the first half, but behind a 14-0 run going into the break, the hosts found themselves up by double figures.
The defense was spectacular over the scoring run, keeping the Rams off the board for over seven minutes before halftime.
Powering the offense was Aaliyah Parker, who scored 11 of those 14 points en route to a 17-point first half. Parker, who finished with 23 points, was part of a Bona trio who were just about unstoppable on the scoring front all day. Alongside her, Laycee Drake netted a game-high 26 points and eight rebounds and Mackenzie Pettinelli recorded a career-high 18 points.
For Parker it was her willingness to get physical in the paint that led her to such an output.
“My mindset was just to be aggressive,” Parker said. “Get the ball and drive to the rim. I’m a pretty physical player, so I knew I could get there.”
Prior to the game, Crowley noted he had no doubts in his mind that Drake would bounce back from the rare single-digit scoring game she had earlier in the week against George Washington. His belief was well-placed.
“I just have to continue to play my game,” Drake said. “In the last game against GW, my shot wasn’t feeling very well, but you just gotta keep it pushing. And here we are.”
But ultimately, Parker and Drake scoring in droves is something the team has gotten used to. The outburst from Pettinelli on the scoresheet was a welcome addition as she got herself in the paint and shot the ball efficiently from the outside.
“I think probably everybody’s been on her to be aggressive, and today, she was ready,” Crowley said. “Mack has seen a lot, she’s played a lot of minutes in two years. So, she’s seen a lot of different defenses. She’s seen a lot of different stuff we’ve done. We really believe in her and we just want to keep pushing her confidence level higher and higher.”
The Bona lead ballooned to as high as 18 points in the third quarter, but, not letting Bona get away without a scare, Fordham shaved the hosts’ advantage down to just four going into the fourth quarter.
Needing a response, Pettinelli powered a quick scoring burst to start the fourth that put her team’s lead back up to double digits. The Rams got some last-minute shots to fall, but the late buckets were all in vain as the Bonnies were able to secure the result at home.
St. Bonaventure’s Elyse MacDonough (30) pulls up for a 3-pointer against Fordham. (Spencer Bates)
The win was all the more meaningful due to the fact it was senior night for Bona as well. Drake and Parker along with Gabby Robinson and Mya Davidson were all honored prior to the game and following the victory, Crowley piled on the praise.
“They bought into what we’re doing, they bought into Bonaventure and they invested in their teammates,” Crowley said. “Usually pretty good things can happen when your older kids are in that mindset.”
Ever since his return to St. Bonaventure, Crowley has eyed restoring the program to the pedigree it was at when he first left. It has been no easy task over the first couple years of his second stint at the helm, but his team has now secured itself a bye in the first round of the A10 tournament — doing so while recording the program’s first winning record in a season since 2015-16. A moment that he just had to admit is notable.
“I don’t want to downplay it, but coaches stink at enjoying,” Crowley said. “But it is an important part. I mean, to do the things that this group has done when there’s been the challenges that there have been over the last decade, and to do it in different ways, against good teams, and to see the support of the community and their excitement, I think that’s made it even easier. The kids we have, they play hard, they’re likable, they’re Bona kids. Yes, we’ve done it, but they’ve helped us do it in the way that we want to do it.”
St. Bonaventure is officially the No. 9 seed in the Atlantic 10 Championship bracket and will play No. 8 seed Loyola Chicago on March 5 at 11 a.m. in Henrico, Virginia. The winner will then take on No. 1 seed Rhode Island.
