EASTON, PA. ? Lafayette's Vanessa Van De Venter scored a break away lay up with 0.9 seconds remaining to send Lafayette to a 65-64 last second win over the Monmouth University women's basketball team on Monday evening at the Alan P. Kirby Sports Center.
Lafayette held a 63-59 lead with 3:00 left, but Jennifer Bender (Staten Island, N.Y./Staten Island Tech) responded for Monmouth with a left handed jump hook to make it a two-point game. The Hawks responded with a defensive stop on the other end and Nyaimah Ware (Washington, D.C./Dunbar) drilled a right wing three-pointer to give Monmouth a 64-63 lead with 1:10 left in the game. Lafayette had a fast break down the other way with less than a minute left, but Monmouth's Veronica Randolph (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach) blocked LaKeisha Wright to preserve the lead. Randolph was fouled, but missed two free throws, which set up the Lafayette last second escape.
Bender led four Hawks in double figures with 13 points and added nine rebounds. Marbely Montas (Cranford, N.J./Elizabeth) added 12 points for the second straight game, while Brooke McElroy (Chesterfield, Va./Thomas Dale) chipped in with 11 and Randolph added her first career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.
Monmouth held a 4-3 lead at the 15:57 mark of the first half as Rachel Ferdinand (Califon, N.J./Voorhees) assisted on the first two Hawks' hoops, the first to Marbely Montas and the second to Jennifer Bender. McElroy hit a left corner three-pointer to increase the MU lead to 8-3 at the 15:00 mark of the opening half after she rejected Lauren Jackson's right wing baseline shot for Lafayette.
The Monmouth lead stood at 13-9 after Randolph converted a traditional three-point play at the 12:45 mark of the first half. The MU lead swelled to 18-10 at the 9:08 mark after a Bender finish in transition following a Leopard turnover. The Hawks increased their lead to 27-16 at the 5:00 mark of the first half following a Ware left-wing three-pointer and a Randolph turn around bank shot from the right block.
Lafayette responded by going on a 12-2 scoring run to cut the MU lead to a single point at 29-28, but McElroy ended the run and the first half with a buzzer-beating floater in the lane to make the score at intermission 31-28.
McElroy led the way for Monmouth in the first half with eight points, while LaKia Barber (Clinton, Md./Gwynn Park) added six. Randolph and Bender each had five points and six rebounds in the first half, while Ware added five points and five boards.
The Leopards came out of the halftime locker room and rattled off nine quick points to take a 37-35 lead following a Cristin Zavocki lay-in at the 18:05 mark. The Hawks then regained the lead at 42-40 when McElroy swished in a three from the top of the key off a kick out from Bender at the 16:05 mark of the second half. The game went back forth and the lead changed hands as Kevaney Martin (Oil City, Pa./Oil City) canned a left baseline jumper, her first collegiate basket, to give the Hawks a 46-45 lead before MU gave it back when Lafayette's Meaghan Malone drove in for a deuce at the 12:00 mark of the second half.
Freshman Samantha Schanuel (Walkersville, Md./Walkersville) tied the game up for Monmouth at 53-53 with her first collegiate basket at the 8:15 mark of the second half. The Hawks took a slim 59-57 lead after a Bender bucket in the lane with five minutes left in the game.
Ware added eight points and six rebounds for Monmouth, who shot 42.1 % from the floor, but only 57.9 % from the foul line in the game.
Monmouth returns to action this Sunday, November 18 when they host Villanova at 5:00 p.m. at Boylan Gym.
