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Haigh happy to see this Red Flash team

By Nate Ritchey

nritchey@altoonamirror.com

LORETTO — During Saturday’s loss to Sacred Heart, Saint Francis came out flat, with very little intensity and paid for it with a loss to a team it had no business losing to.

On Monday, against Fairleigh Dickinson, the Red Flash made sure they didn’t have a repeat performance. They used their defensive pressure to spark their offense in a decisive victory over the Knights, 80-61, in Northeast Conference action at DeGol Arena.

“It’s nice to have our team back. After Saturday, that was obviously not the way that we want to play,” Saint Francis coach Joe Haigh said. “That was kind of the main focus in coming into tonight was just to get back to playing the way that we play. Playing the tempo we play offensively and really working hard defensively.”

For the game, Saint Francis forced 24 turnovers, including 17 steals, which led to 31 points as it led from start-to-finish to improve to 17-9 overall and 12-2 in the NEC. Meanwhile, FDU fell to 15-11 and 7-8.

SFU began the game on the attack as its first seven shots came from 10 feet in before Jessica Kovatch buried a 3-pointer from the left side with one minute remaining that gave her team a 17-2 lead.

The Knights, who shot just 13 percent at the start, got their first hoop on a backdoor layup from Lauren Francillon at the 5:27 mark to break up the 6-0 run.

However, that’s the last time they scored until a Courtney Blankenship layup with 28.5 ticks remaining in the quarter.

During that span, SFU scored 11 straight as Haley Thomas accounted for four, Caitlyn Kroll and Maya Wynn each had layups and Kovatch connected on another trey with one minute to play to put her team up 17-2. The junior also responded to Blankenship’s basket with her third triple to raise the lead to 20-4 at the end of one quarter.

“They came out with their defense with steals — intense steals to get the breakaway layups,” Fairleigh Dickinson coach Peter Cinella said. “That is what they did … They got the layups off of steals. Those were the killers in the first half.”

The Red Flash didn’t let up in the second as they pushed their lead out to 28 points (44-18) when Kovatch buried her fourth trey of the half with 53.2 to go before halftime.

The offense kept right on scoring with the assist from the defense that forced 15 first-half turnovers.

“Offensively, it (getting steals) gives us a lot of confidence,” said Kroll who tallied 16 points. “… On Saturday, we had no steals in the first half and it made our offense slow down. This game, we had a variety of steals in the first half and it just got us flowing. We rely on turnovers to convert to our offense.”

Back-to-back buckets by Elise Graham and Francil-lon sent Fairleigh Dickinson into the break down 24.

If you take away the first quarter, Saint Francis only out-scored FDU, 60-57, but the Knights failed to make up any ground in the second half. They only got as close as 19 points when Peniel M’Bikata converted a layup with just 38 seconds left in the game.

“We had 27 turnovers the last time we played them. We felt this time we can only turn it over 15 times,” Cinella said. “And then I knew at halftime we were at 15. So, that was the big discrepancy.”

The Red Flash eventually led by 32 points at two different times, the first on a free throw from Karson Swogger to put her team up 58-26 at 2:39 of the third, and the last on a Kovatch layup to make it 61-29 with 2:03 showing.

“We picked it up today,” said Kovatch, who finished with a game-high 29 points, despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter. “… We played together as a team today, and I think that’s what we needed. We only want to go up from here.”

SFU, led by Ace Harrison’s 12, also won the rebounding battle by a 49-45 margin with 22 coming on the offensive glass.

“We had 22 offensive rebounds today … that’s really, really a high number,” Haigh said. “We’re right in the No. 20 range in the country in offensive rebounding. Getting those extra possessions have own us games before and they’ve really helped us when we aren’t shooting especially well — like today.”

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON (15-11, 7-8): Francillon 7-9 0-1 14, Markovic 3-10 2-2 8, Comly 3-8 1-1 8, Serrano-Ranz 0-2 0-0 0, M’Bikata 6-18 0-0 13, Zamora 1-4 0-0 3, Weimer 1-4 0-0 3, Saral 2-3 0-0 4, Clark 0-1 0-0 0, Graham 1-2 0-0 2, Blankenship 2-4 0-1 4, Stanley 1-2 0-0 2. Totals: 27-67 3-5 61.

SAINT FRANCIS (17-9, 12-2): Zezza 3-6 0-1 7, Harrison 1-6 3-4 5, Kroll 4-15 6-6 16, Wynn 2-8 0-0 4, Kovatch 11-23 0-0 29, Swogger 0-3 2-2 2, Morrow 2-5 0-0 4, Mastellone 0-0 0-0 0, Carroll 2-4 0-0 6, Scott 0-1 0-0 0, Falvey 0-0 0-0 0, Smith 0-3 1-2 1, Thomas 3-6 0-0 6. Totals: 28-80 12-15 80.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

F. Dickinson 4 16 17 24 — 61

Saint Francis 20 24 20 16 — 80

3-point field goals: FDU 4-20 (Comly 1-2, Zamora 1-4, Weimer 1-4, M’Bikata 1-6, Clark 0-1, Markovic 0-3); SFU 12-44 (Kovatch 7-17, Carroll 2-4, Kroll 2-9, Zezza 1-3, Smith 0-1, Thomas 0-1, Harrison 0-2, Swogger 0-3, Wynn 0-4). Rebounds: Fairleigh Dickinson 45 (Francillon 10); Saint Francis 49 (Harrison 12). Assists: Fairleigh Dickinson 15 (Blankenship 4); Saint Francis 16 (Kroll 4).

Officials: Frank Steratore, Colleen Thompson, Kevin Farlow.

A: 427

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