Women's Basketball Concludes Regular Season with 70-50 Setback at Merrimack
Dyamond Gardner adds nine points off the bench
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (February 26, 2013) -- The Franklin
Pierce University women's basketball team capped its 2012-13
regular season on Tuesday with a tough 70-50 loss to Merrimack at
Bert Hammel Court in North Andover, Mass. The Ravens concluded the
regular season with a 17-9 overall record and a 14-8 mark in the
Northeast-10, while the Warriors improved to 15-11 and 11-11 in
league play.
By dropping the contest, Franklin Pierce lost out on the
opportunity to host a Northeast-10 Conference Championship
quarterfinal round game on Sunday. The Ravens, who earned the
league's No. 5 seed in the upcoming tournament will now travel on
Sunday to face the fourth-seeded UMass-Lowell River Hawks at the
Costello Athletic Center. It will mark the teams' second
meeting in the last eight days at Costello as the Ravens took down
Lowell, 101-86, on Saturday. Franklin Pierce swept the two-game
regular season series from Lowell, including picking up a 99-76 win
in Rindge back on Dec. 8.
Franklin Pierce had a pair of offensive outbursts against Lowell
this season, but against Merrimack on Tuesday the Ravens were
anything but outstanding shooting the basketball. Freshman forward
Kara Charette (Fairhaven, Mass.) was the lone
Raven to score in double-figures with 18 points as Franklin Pierce
managed just a 32 percent shooting clip (20-of-63) from the field,
including a 14 percent average (3-of-21) from three-point
range.
Merrimack, on the other hand, had a solid night shooting the rock
and connected on 48 percent of its attempts (25-of-52). Three
Warriors scored in double-figures, including Kelly Schatzlein's
team-high 16 points. Jaclyn Lyons and Shelby Secor followed with 14
and 12 points, respectively.
The Warriors also held the advantage on the glass as Schatzlein
powered her way for 19 rebounds to log a double-double and give
Merrimack a 42-38 rebounding edge.
Schatzlein hit a pair of layups for Merrimack to open the game, but
it took three-and-a-half minutes to get both baskets. While
Merrimack wasn't stellar offensively in the opening minutes, they
were outstanding defensively by holding Franklin Pierce scoreless
until four minutes into the game and not allowing the Ravens to
reach double-figures in points until midway through the first half.
Charette's layup with 9:46 left until halftime pulled the Ravens to
within four at 15-11.
Merrimack finally started to get on track late in the half and
scored the stanza's final seven points, keyed by a pair of baskets
from Schatzlein, to take a 32-20 lead into halftime.
Franklin Pierce never made a threat in the second half as Merrimack
quickly extended its lead to 17 at 39-22 following a Lyons'
three-pointer a little under four minutes into the frame.
Sophomore guard Dyamond Gardner (Cambridge,
Mass.), who added nine points off the bench for Franklin
Pierce, knocked down a jumper at the 12:24 mark of the second half
to get the Ravens to within nine at 39-30, but that was close as
they would get the entire half.
Merrimack, however, scored 10 of the game's next 12 points to put
the game out of reach and eventually led by as many as 24 points in
cruising in for the win. The victory also locked up a playoff spot
for the Warriors, who earned the 10th seed and will take on
seventh-seeded Pace in the first round on Friday night.
For more information on Franklin Pierce women's basketball, please
visit the team's page at athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) To follow
the program even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on
YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports), Twitter
(www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook
(www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens). Fans wishing to purchase
Franklin Pierce women's basketball apparel can do so on the
athletic department's online store at
athletics.franklinpierce.edu/store(.)