STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. ? The Monmouth University women's basketball team dropped a 71-61 contest to Wagner in Northeast Conference action on Saturday afternoon at the Spiro Sports Center. The loss drops Monmouth to 7-17 and 4-9 in the league, while Wagner improves to 6-18 and 4-9 in the conference as well.
MU trailed by as many as 14 points in the game before whittling the Wagner lead to five on a pair of occasions late in the second half in the loss.
The game started off with the Seahawks jumping out to an 8-1 lead as MU missed their first seven shots before Brianne Edwards (Bloomfield, Conn./Suffield) keyed a fast break with a bounce pass to Jennifer Bender (Staten Island, N.Y./Staten Island Tech) who finished for the Hawks first field goal. Wagner maintained a 15-7 advantage at the 9:43 mark of the first half after a three-point field goal and jumper by senior Chelsey Bunyer.
Monmouth momentarily cut the Wagner lead to five after a Marisa Jimenez (Carteret, N.J./Carteret) steal at half court and subsequent lay up at the six minute mark, but the Hawks allowed a leak out basket back the other way to trail 24-17 at the 4:38 mark of the opening half.
The Seahawks took a 37-24 lead into intermission after going on a run to end the half. Monmouth was led by Bender's 10 points and seven rebounds, while Wagner was paced by Andrea Reed's 10 points. The Hawks turned it over 14 times in the first half, which lead to 16 Wagner points.
Wagner matched their largest lead of the game at 47-34 with just over seven minutes gone by in the second half as Reed scored six quick points and Casey Stokes added a left-wing three for the hosts. After the Wagner lead swelled to 14 at 52-38, Monmouth cut it back to single digits at 52-46 following a free throw apiece from Bender and Jimenez with less than seven minutes to go in the game and a scoop lay up from Rachel Ferdinand (Califon, N.J./Voorhees) with 6:05 left.
After giving up a Seahawk basket, Monmouth's Veronica Randolph (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach) came down and drilled a three-pointer to cut the lead back to six at 55-49 with 4:50 left in the game, but Wagner's Ali Ridge made a lay up in transition to put their lead back to eight.
Bender led the Hawks with her eighth double-double of the season, and third in the last four games with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Edwards added 12 points, eight rebounds, four assists, zero turnovers and three steals.
Monmouth returns to action on Monday, February 18 when they travel to Teaneck, N.J. for a 5:00 p.m. league contest with Fairleigh Dickinson. The game will be televised on FoxSports-New York, as will the MU men's game with the Knights later on that night at 7:00 p.m.
