Box Score POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. –
Helena Kurt (Spanga, Sweden/Igelstavikens Gymnasium) led the Monmouth University women's basketball team with 14 points, seven rebounds and three assists, but the Hawks fell at 11-time defending MAAC Champion Marist, 75-65, to open MAAC play Friday night at the McCann Center. With the loss, the Hawks fall to 3-3 (0-1 MAAC) while the Red Foxes improve to 2-5 (1-0 MAAC).
Christina Mitchell (Baltimore, Md./MATHS) added 12 points and a game-high nine rebounds for the Hawks, while
Sarah Olson (Freehold, N.J./Howell [NJIT]) added 10 points.
Mia Hopkins (Pittston, Pa./Pittston Area) also chipped in with seven of her nine points in the second half.
Madeline Blais led Marist with 22 points and eight rebounds, with 19 of her points coming in the first half. Tori Jarosz, making her return from a preseason injury, scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Sydney Coffey scored 11 of her 13 points from the free-throw line and Katharine Fogarty narrowly missed a double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds.
“We were really hoping to come in here and steal one,” said Monmouth Head Coach
Jenny Palmateer. “But to be matched up with the defending champ on the first night of conference play is a great challenge and something we were looking forward to. We just couldn't pull that one out. I really feel like we played 30-35 minutes of pretty good basketball. The last five minutes of the first half is what I feel like did us in. Marist went on that 10-point run and we just could never recover from that. And we got in a hole early in the second half even further and battled back from that, but couldn't recover.”
After a back-and-forth first 17 minutes in which Monmouth buried seven of 19 three-point attempts and led 29-28 on a Hopkins bucket in the paint, Marist finished the half on an 11-0 run to take a 39-29 lead into the locker room. Jarosz scored seven of the 11 points.
Blais led all scorers with 19 points in the first half to go along with six rebounds. Jarosz added 10 points. Olson and Kurt led MU with six points apiece, both on a pair of three-pointers.
Marist gradually worked its lead up to 22 points at 70-48 with 5:17 left to play. But Monmouth would score the next 11 points and 17 of the next 20 to close to within eight points at 73-65 with 46 seconds left. Hopkins scored seven points in the spurt. But the Red Foxes closed out the victory, 75-65.
Marist outshot the Hawks, 37.7 percent (20-53) to 28.6 percent (20-70) from the floor. The Hawks took slight edges from long range (31.6 percent [12-38] to 27.3 percent [6-22]) and the free-throw line (86.7 percent [13-15] to 82.9 percent [29-35]) and outrebounded Marist, 46-41, including a 20-10 advantage on the offensive glass. Marist took a 26-12 advantage in points in the paint and a 14-6 edge off turnovers.
The Hawks return to MAAC action Sunday, when they play host to Iona as part of a men's and women's doubleheader against the Gaels. Tipoff of the women's game is slated for 2 p.m.
