Box Score WILMINGTON, Del. (Nov. 13, 2015) – Playing its first game under the NCAA's new rules for women's basketball, the Molloy College Lions took on the Bloomfield College Bears as part of the ECC/CACC Challenge at the Wilmington University Athletics Complex Friday evening. The night belonged to senior forward
Ally Leftridge (Melville, N.Y.), whose record-setting performance from beyond the arc led the Lions to a 68-60 victory in Delaware.
Molloy (1-0) led the opposition by a 14-12 score after one period of play, despite Bloomfield (0-1) supplying a suffocating press game when the Lions took possession. Bloomfield scored the first seven points before the Melville native knocked down a pair of three-point jumpers to bring her team within one midway through the ten-minute opening frame. An exchange of points followed with the maroon and white trailing 11-8 until sharpshooting senior guard
Alexia O'Connor (Centerport, N.Y.) buried a long-range jumper to tie the score. With time winding down in the opening quarter, it would be another senior taking over as
Kimani Jackson (Dix Hills, N.Y.) took a feed from junior guard
Maggie Salomone (Narragansett, R.I.) in the paint and made the lay-up, drawing a foul against Bloomfield's Ariel Wilson (Chesapeake, Va.) in the process. Jackson converted the free throw to complete the three-point play and the Lions had their early lead at the end of the first part of action. The first quarter was sloppy on both sides, with the two teams combining for 13 turnovers and 16 points off of said giveaways.
Bloomfield started the second quarter strongly, scoring the first five points of the frame on a lay-in by Tianna Smith (Spring Valley, N.Y.) and a Wilson trifecta to take a 17-14 lead. A Leftridge three leveled the score and the two sides traded buckets to get to a 19-all score before O'Connor nailed another triple to give the Lions a three-point lead. Molloy extended the lead to a 23-19 edge but the Bears collected four straight points as the back-and-forth frame continued to unfold. The maroon and white re-took the lead at the 4:03 mark of the second period on a Jackson field goal, but Bloomfield answered back as Wilson knocked down a three-ball to give the CACC representative a 27-25 lead late in the second. The lead did not last as Salomone rained in a long-range jumper with just under two minutes left in the half as Molloy eked out a 28-27 advantage. The Bears continued the trend of a see-saw second period with a Smith field goal to re-take a one-point lead. That would conclude the scoring for the first half, with Bloomfield entering the locker room up 29-28. Both teams ended the first twenty minutes shooting the ball particularly well, as Molloy hit 41% (9-22) of its field goals and was six-for-eight from beyond the three-point line. Bloomfield, meanwhile, hit 46% (11-24) of its jumpers despite going just two-for-five from deep. The Bears made five of their six free throws while Molloy made just four of seven from the stripe in the opening half of hoops in Wilmington.
To start the second half, Molloy opened with the first five points on an O'Connor jumper and a Leftridge three-ball in utilizing the same formula that had kept them so close with the CACC's preseason choice to win the North Division. The Bears seemingly had an answer for everything though, as leads of 35-31, 39-35 and 42-39 quickly evaporated under Bloomfield's suffocating defense and lightning-quick counterattacks. The Bears took a 45-42 lead until Leftridge drained another three-pointer, and a 47-45 lead up until junior forward
Brianna Perlmutter (Brooklyn, N.Y.) tied the game with a field goal of her own. The lead would be in the favor of the Bears after three periods, though only a one-point margin could Bloomfield claim going into the final act.
The Lions turned on the jets in the fourth stanza of basketball, and opened on a 6-0 run with free throws by O'Connor and Hampton and a lay-in by Jackson to give the maroon and white a 53-48 edge. A Leftridge lay-up at the 6:43 mark of the fourth gave Molloy a 56-50 lead but the Bears refused to go away. A 4-0 personal run by freshman forward Briana Carrington (Baltimore, Md.) brought Bloomfield within two until a critical make by Jackson at the other end put Molloy back up by four with under five minutes to go. Both teams would then hit a slump as neither side tickled the twine in the next two minutes, with the Lions still holding a 58-54 lead with three minutes to play. The scoring drought extended another 75 seconds, with the clock slowly working itself in the favor of the maroon and white as at the 1:45 mark, Leftridge buried her sixth three of the contest to put the Lions up by seven at 61-54, its biggest edge at the time. With the three-pointer---her sixth in six attempts, Leftridge set the new mark for highest three-point percentage in a game by an individual as Molloy also set a new program mark for best three-point percentage as a team in one contest. The Lions would have to hold on, though, as Bloomfield rained in two straight three-pointers to cut an at one time 11-point lead down to five at 65-60. Jackson was fouled and put to the free throw line with 14.5 seconds left, and after sinking a clutch foul shot, the game was decided. Two free throws by O'Connor closed the scoring account as Molloy collected a season-opening victory for the third straight season.
Leftridge scored 23 points on a night to remember, converting eight field goals in 11 attempts including her now-program standard six-for-six mark from three-point range. O'Connor had 19 points as well as seven rebounds and hit all eight of her free throws down the stretch, while Jackson just missed a double-double with 16 points and nine boards on the night. Fellow senior
Alex Hampton (Baldwin, N.Y.) had four points, three assists and two rebounds while freshman guard
Ihnacinse Grady (Amityville, N.Y.) had two assists and four rebounds in her first start with the Lions.
Molloy shot 49% (21-43) from the field, buoyed by a 57% field goal percentage in the second half as the Lions knocked down 12 of 21 attempts. The maroon and white knocked down 71% (10-14) of its three-point attempts, breaking a team record from 2011 when the Lions hit 55.6% of their three-balls at Saint Thomas Aquinas on Feb. 9. The Lions out-rebounded Bloomfield 35-31, but committed 22 turnovers to the Bears' 14. Leading Bloomfield with 14 points was Smith while seniors Wilson and Chyna Golden (Neptune, N.J.) had 13 points on the night. The Bears went 24-61 (39.3%) from the field in the loss and struggled from deep, hitting just four of 13 shot attempts from downtown (30.8%).
Head Coach
Joe Pellicane and Molloy College will face the hosts of the ECC/CACC Challenge in the Wilmington University Wildcats on Saturday (Nov. 14) at 6 p.m.
