WALTHAM, Mass. (1/1/23) – The Franklin Pierce women's basketball team set out on the road for a Northeast-10 matchup with Bentley University to ring in the new year, but found themselves outworked in the second half en route to a lopsided 86-50 loss on Sunday afternoon.  

The weekend contest left the Ravens with a 5-8 (2-5 NE10) overall record on the season, while the host Falcons improved to 8-4 (5-1 NE10) on the year.

The two teams battled each other hard in the first frame, as junior Ines Gimenez-Monserrat (Mallorca, Spain) led the way for the Ravens with seven points scored. Within the first two minutes of play, the lead swapped a total of four times, with Bentley eventually climbing to as much as a 16-11 advantage mid-way through the quarter. Following a two-point jumper from freshman Kenzie Sirowich (Seymour, Conn.), junior forward Ashley Smith (Holden, Mass.) matched the shot to bring the score back to a 16-16 deadlock. From there, the two teams would remain neck-and-neck and enter the second half tied at 21-all.

In the second quarter, the Ravens held their own with the Falcons, but would fail to reclaim the lead. As a team, Pierce went on to shoot 6-of-13 from the floor in the second frame, but would come up empty from behind the arc going 0-for-4. Of their 13 attempted shots, Kenzie Sirowich knocked down a team-leading four points heading to the intermission, where Bentley held the lead 40-35.

The Ravens fell behind drastically in the second half, as they watched the Falcons open the third with a 17-0 scoring run while shoot 64.7 percent (11-of-17) from the field. As a result, the Ravens were never able to recover offensively the rest of the way, shooting less than 30 percent in each of the final two quarters, rallying behind just 15 points scored through the final 20 minutes of action. When all was said and done, the Falcons had blown the doors open in the second half, outscoring the Ravens 46-15 to close out the afternoon with the win.

Junior guard Ana Badosa Soler (Girona, Spain) finished the day with a team-high 12 points and 5 boards, while Kenzie Sirowich delivered 11 points with 4 rebounds, with each shooting 4-of-7 from the floor. The Ravens, in total, shot 20-of-48 (41.7%) from all floor positions, but struggled to hit shots from three-point range, going 2-of-14 (14.3%) from deep.

The Ravens will have a few days off to shake off the rust before returning to the court on Wednesday, January 4th for another NE10 showdown against Southern Connecticut State, with tipoff scheduled for 5:30 p.m. from The Fieldhouse.