Box Score ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Mar. 2, 2016) - Outscoring the opposition by an 18-16 margin in the fourth quarter could not outset scoring just 10 points and yielding 24 points in Wednesday's (Mar. 2) East Coast Conference Play-In Round contest up at the Voller Athletic Center in Rochester. For the Molloy College women's basketball team, the aforementioned margins led to a 54-38 loss to Roberts Wesleyan College and a disappointing end to a season of incredible accomplishments and overachievements (at least by the conference's preseason poll standards).
The fourth-seeded Redhawks scored the game's first four points on jumpers by Samantha Courtney (Marathon, N.Y.) and Necedah James (Syracuse, N.Y.) before Molloy's
Ally Leftridge (Melville, N.Y.) got the Lions on the board with 7:55 to play in the quarter. The Lions would take an 8-6 lead midway through the frame as senior guard
Alexia O'Connor (Centerport, N.Y.) hit a jumper off a feed from freshman guard
Ihnacinse Grady (Amityville, N.Y.) but that would be the only advantage Molloy held in the entire contest. Roberts Wesleyan ended the first quarter on an 8-2 run to lead by four points heading into the second period of play.
The second quarter started off with an abysmal run of offense on both sides, as the two teams missed a combined 12 shots to open the frame. The run stopped only when Courtney hit a lay-up with just over three minutes gone by in the fame, but the Lions would have difficulties in the stanza hitting shots. In fact, Molloy went just 3-for-16 (18.8%) from the field in the second quarter with Leftridge hitting two shots including a quarter-ending three-pointer and
Kimani Jackson (Dix Hills, N.Y.) netting the other bucket. Down 25-17 going into the third quarter of play, Molloy would find itself in a slump that was just too difficult to overcome. Grady hit a three for the Lions' only points of the third frame, hitting just 6.7% (1-15) of their shots in the third and trailing 38-20 going into the final quarter. By then, the lead was too much to overcome because the maroon and white had too much trouble scoring to keep the squad's hopes of reaching the ECC semifinals alive.
Molloy would end the contest shooting 15-for-65 (23.1%) from the floor and hitting just 16% (4-25) of the team's three-point attempts. Roberts Wesleyan, meanwhile, also shot poorly from the field in hitting 20-of-68 (29.4%) from the floor and just 5.9% (1-17) of its three-point attempts. The Redhawks were plus-19 (61-42) in the rebounding category, which led to 13 second-chance points and a 28-18 advantage in the paint for the hosts.
For the Lions, Jackson had a team-high 12 points in her final collegiate game while Leftridge ended her career with a double-double (11 points, 10 rebounds). Grady added eight points and O'Connor chipped in with seven, but those four were the only players that scored at all in the game. Courtney led all scorers with 20 points and 13 rebounds while Taylor Bynoe (Williamstown, N.J.) and Lucy Covley (Fairport, N.Y.) each grabbed double-digit rebounds.
The season comes to an end for the maroon and white with a 12-17 record and an 11-9 mark in East Coast Conference play. The No. 5 seed was a marked improvement for the Lions, who were picked to finish seventh in the ECC Preseason Poll back in November.
