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(.)