Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Fairleigh Dickinson
Balanced Scoring Leads Bison to 72-62 Win Over Fairleigh Dickinson
12/4/2015 10:46:00 PM | Women's Basketball
LEWISBURG, Pa. – The Bucknell women's basketball team used its most balanced offensive attack of the season to beat visiting Fairleigh Dickinson 72-62 Friday night at Sojka Pavilion. The Bison erased a nine-point halftime deficit as it improved to 5-3 on the season. The Knights dropped to 1-5.
Five Bucknell players scored at least eight points in the contest, led by sophomore guard Jacquie Klotz with 19. A pair of young Bison players had the best offensive output of their careers, as sophomore forward Catherine Romaine tallied 14 points and freshman guard Kyi English poured in 13. Freshman forward Kaitlyn Slagus added nine points, while junior forward Claire DeBoer chipped in with eight despite playing most of the second half with foul trouble.
The Bison were coming off back-to-back losses, but avoided losing three straight regular season games for the first time since the 2013 season.
“I've never worried about us bouncing back after a bad game,” said Bucknell head coach Aaron Roussell. “We didn't play our best on Sunday; we came back and had a phenomenal practice on Monday. That's been the nature of our program. We have very rarely played poorly two games in a row.”
Bucknell trailed 36-27 at the half, but outscored the Knights 45-26 over the final two quarters. The turning point came on a 9-0 run that gave the Bison a 46-44 lead midway through the third quarter. McGurk started the run with a pair of free throws, and Romaine cut the deficit to three with a layup. Romaine stole the ball at the other end and found Klotz for an open 3-pointer that tied the game. Following a missed layup by Fairleigh Dickinson, Slagus was fouled and hit both free throws to give the Bison their first lead since they went up 2-0 1:10 after the opening tip.
Fairleigh Dickinson tied the game three more times, but another 9-0 run helped Bucknell pull away. English provided the spark for the Bison during that stretch, hitting two free throws, finding Klotz for an open layup on a fastbreak, and hitting a layup of her own to put her team up 58-49 with 7:36 to play. It won't show up on the stat sheet, but English had two other perfect bounce passes in transition that resulted in missed layups. She later added to her solid fourth quarter with a 3-pointer that put the Bison up 67-57 with 1:13 left in the game.
“I was proud of our team in the second half,” Roussell said. “I was a little disappointed with the energy in the first half. I hate using the phrase 'lack of effort,' but I think that was mentioned in the locker room at halftime. There wasn't a lot of ranting and raving. The coaches walked into the locker room and you could tell the players had already talked about it and said 'this one's on us.'”
Klotz led all players with 12 rebounds – eight of which came in the fourth quarter – and recorded her fourth double-double of the season. DeBoer was on her way to posting a third consecutive double-double before fouling out on an offensive charge with 3:18 to play. She added nine rebounds, four assists and three steals to her eight points. DeBoer has at least one steal in every game this season.
Junior guard Megan McGurk led the Patriot League in assist/turnover ratio entering the game and helped her cause with her performance on Friday. She matched DeBoer with a team-high four assists and took care of the ball with an impressive zero turnovers.
Defensively, Bucknell held FDU to 37 percent shooting on a 22-of-60 mark from the field, including 3-of-13 from beyond the arc. It was the sixth straight game the Bison held their opponents under 40 percent shooting and the seventh time in their eight games played this season. Notre Dame was the only opponent to shoot above 40 percent.
The Bison will be on the road for their next contest as they travel to play UMBC on Tuesday. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the RAC Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.
