Women’s Basketball celebrates their history

By Dillon Flanigan

Sports Editor

Prior to the Women’s Basketball game on Saturday Feb. 22, the university celebrated Girls & Women in sports day at James Moore Field House capping the special day with a 75-72 win over the Franklin Pierce University Ravens.

After holding a double-digit lead that dwindled in the second half, it became a one possession game with minutes to go that merely irked a scene a month ago in Rindge, New Hampshire however, this time, it was in the Owls favor.

“We talked about trusting the process from start to finish, and sometimes it gets difficult in games when you know teams are going on the runs it’s certainly hard to focus and concentrate on what got you there,” Head Coach Kate Lynch said. “But I think the team did a really, really nice job today of trusting the process is just continuing to be able to have confidence and respond when they were making the runs.”

The Ravens inched closer in the second half as the shots fell. With that, the Owls opted to utilize their bench leaning on guard Lyzi Litwinko and forward Marisa Lee, graduates. While Litwinko has carved out playing time over the course of the season in a bench role, her counterpart Lee has not.

Reshuffling the lineup has not been uncommon to Lynch, even though starting forward Katie Williamson, a graduate, fouled out for the third time this season; she was available when the veteran coach turned to Lee who was 3-6 from the free throw line in 15 minutes.

“We kind of defer to the fact that Marisa is strong and she’s really long. She’s 6-2, but we knew that she could match number 44 pretty well,” Lynch said. “You’re not going to not necessarily stop her from scoring, but you want to make it more difficult. You want to disrupt her turnaround jumper, and I thought Marisa did a really good job of stepping up into the role.”

After a slow start for the Ravens, they mounted a second-half comeback, but it was made difficult with the Owls adjustments. With Lee slowing down the scoring in the paint, the Owls had one block and nine steals.

Part of slowing the Ravens offense was guard Jillian Martin, a graduate, finishing with three of the nine steals on the day.

“Defense is a really big part of my game so whenever I can just get a steal or bring the energy, it transfers onto the offensive side of the game, and it just brings a good vibe to the rest of the team,” Martin said.

In transition, the Ravens tried to keep the ball away from guard Delaney Haines, a senior, who seems to never miss a shot even when under pressure. Finishing with 25 points, including five three pointers, Lynch voiced how Haines rises to the challenge and is not shy about putting the ball in her hands at the end of a game.

“I think it just all comes down to confidence, and just my teammates and my coaches really instilled in me, just keep shooting, even if one doesn’t go in and once I see one go in, I know the next one’s gonna go in as well,” Haines said.

With 32 rebounds for the Owls, Haines is not surprised, but believes they came in with a different attitude that propelled them. Now tied for third place with the University of New Haven Chargers for a coveted first-round bye in the NE10 tournament, the Owls will need to beat Saint Anselm College on Tuesday Feb. 25 and hope the Chargers lose to Adelphi University.

The home court advantage helps but Lynch believes her team needs to do their job.

“We just have to focus ourselves honestly. At the end of the day, we got to get the job done here,” Lynch said. “We can’t focus on what anybody else does. We can only focus on what we can do.”

Though this victory was gratifying and much needed, the overarching theme was celebrating the history of Women’s Basketball at the university.