By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — With 48 seconds left, facing a one-point deficit in an all-out tug-of-war, the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team conceded just its eighth turnover.
A game in which ball security had been up to snuff, one turnover had the chance to leave the team with a second Atlantic 10 loss in as many games.
George Washington had a chance to make a late game-winning or game-tying effort from the Bonnies impossible. In search of its eighth consecutive win and second conference victory of the campaign, the Revolutionaries drew up a play.
But if there is one thing about this Bona team, it is that while it may find itself down, it is never out.
The Bonnies, whose defensive execution had been suspect as of late, forced a miss from the Revs and had 13 seconds to make something out of nothing.
The ball, of course, considering that she had compiled a stat line of 21 points, six rebounds and three steals, all of which were game-high tallies, was put in the hands of Laycee Drake. The team’s leader in points per game was going to have her shot at a headline moment. One stumble would cost her that chance. Drake had lost control of the ball under pressure from the GW defense. Fortunately for her, head coach Jim Crowley and the boisterous Bona faithful, it was her teammate Mackenzie Pettinelli that picked up the scraps.
She sold the nearest defender with a step back and with as cool a head as one could ask for in that moment, nailed it, handing the Bonnies a 54-53 win.
“I have total trust in my other teammates to make the plays, and just playing off of them is pretty easy,” Pettinelli said. “But when the ball comes into your hands with a couple seconds left, and you’re just trying to make something out of whatever we have left, it’s about trusting myself that in those situations, I can make big plays no matter what time it is.”
One of the only two returners from last year’s team, Pettinelli has been someone Crowley has looked to heavily this season. She’s a consistent starter, and where she may lack in terms of points per game, she makes up for in leadership and experience. It was exactly that which allowed her to find the right shot at the right moment and Crowley could not have been happier for his vet.
“(The concept of returning players is) disappearing,” Crowley said. “Not that every late clock score doesn’t feel great, but when you get it because you’ve stuck to something, that rocks a little different. I’m just really proud of that. Mack has done a lot of really positive things for us and will continue to. And I think you could see by the excitement her teammates had for her, the impact she has on the program.”
Pettinelli sank the dagger, upending GW’s seven-game win streak, but behind the dazzling play of the game was a complete team performance.
St. Bonaventure’s Laycee Drake (24) puts up a 3-pointer against George Washington. Drake scored a game-high 21 points in the Bonnies’ win. (Hunter O. Lyle)
Most notably, the squad banded together in the most critical times. As of late, Crowley has been preaching the importance of late-game and pivotal-moment execution. In his team’s most recent loss at Howard, they scored 23 points in the third quarter and held a nine-point advantage. But come the end of the quarter, they had also given up 21 points and were back down, trailing by four entering the final frame.
It was just just an instance against Howard either. The Bonnies have had many instances in which they have allowed opposing teams to claw back — Le Moyne and Mercyhurst for example.
Against the Revs, no team led by more than seven points at any given time and the lead changed hands nine times. There was no room for errors to start compounding and much to the relief of Crowley, his team buckled down, didn’t allow scoring runs from their opponents to snowball out of control and came through when it mattered most.
“Our effort has been really good all year,” Crowley said. “We just had to keep getting better at execution. I thought we made that step today.
“The way you get better is you learn from things, and one of the big areas we learned from was that we didn’t have great communication against Howard, and I thought we had really solid communication today. We had multiple people step up, we forced some turnovers with some of our people off the bench in there playing really good defense, we stuck to our concepts and hopefully they see that, and we keep growing from it.”
But it wasn’t just the late-game defense that thrived. Throughout the contest, Bona applied the clamps to GW, forcing 16 turnovers, exchanging those for 15 points the other way. On the flip side, the hosts conceded just eight turnovers and allowed their guests to score just four points from them.
Gabby Reynolds, the Revs’ top scorer coming into the game, and Emma Theodorsson scored a team-high 16 and 10 points, respectively. But they were the only two to reach double figures.
“For Reynolds, we said, ‘let’s make her earn them.’ I thought we fouled her more than we should have, but she’s a very talented player,” Crowley said. “Theodorsson had six or eight in the second quarter, so we really did a good job on her in the second half.”
St. Bonaventure’s Aaliyah Parker (5) fades away from a defender to get a jump shot off against George Washington. Parker finished with 12 points and four rebounds in the win. (Hunter O. Lyle)
Bona also only had two players finish with double figures — Drake and Aaliyah Parker, who netted 12 points and four rebounds. And while a third reliable scoring option is something Crowley remains in search of, what made up the difference was, once again, the defense.
“The one way to make up for a third scorer is to defend really well, not give up many points,” Crowley said. “I thought that was the case today. I really liked how Mack played, I thought her 3s were the right 3s. Elyse (MacDonough) gave us really good minutes. In the second half, (Mallory) Heise gave us great minutes. Olivia DiFranco gave us some really good defensive minutes. … We have a lot of different opportunities there, and that may be who we are. (A team that has) different folks step up on different days.”
It was just the second A10 game of the season for Crowley’s bunch, but according to him it felt “more like a February conference game.”
The intensity was through the roof, the atmosphere was electric and the result was an all-time classic. Crowley credited his team for the adjustments they made and GW for the game they brought in spite of the defeat. He will hope this energy continues to carry over as conference play is now well and truly in motion.
St. Bonaventure won’t have long to celebrate the win with its next game set for Jan. 3 at 3 p.m. at home against Richmond.
