By Ethan Kibbe
Assistant Sports Editor
Four weeks can seem like an awfully long time when your team has lost seven straight games. So, beating UMass 77-57 last Saturday was an important breakthrough for the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team.
“Getting that win definitely boosted our confidence,” junior forward Katie Healy said.
St. Bonaventure played its most consistent game since Jan. 3, something that was not lost on Coach Jim Crowley.
“We played with a really good pace,” Crowley said. “We handled mistakes, difficulty and adversity much better than we had in the past couple weeks.”
Crowley said his team kept its composure in high-pressure situations during the game, avoiding the “slow melt” that he had seen in games such as the Jan. 21 game against VCU in which Bonaventure gave up a 12-point lead and eventually lost.
For the Bonnies, the win was a result of determined efforts on offense and defense. Unlike previous games where Healy had been relied on to carry the team with season-high point totals, the Bonnies worked together on offense. Sophomore forward Gabby Richmond scored 18 points and junior guard Nyla Rueter added 22 more to lead the Bonnies on offense. Healy finished with 14 points.
Crowley was pleased to see multiple players have strong offensive performances.
“It frees things up for us on offense,” Crowley said. “Gabby played within herself; she didn’t try to force things. She played off the way [UMass] was going to defend others, and she’s really good at that.”
Healy echoed her coach, saying, “Emily [Michael], Gabby [Richmond] and Nyla [Rueter] all stepped it up, and it was a good team win.”
The team-oriented offense led to one of this year’s best offensive outputs as the Bonnies shot over 45 percent from the field, their highest shooting percentage since December. Additionally, 77 points is the most the Bonnies have scored in a game since their Dec. 17 victory over UNC Greensboro.
“I liked how well we passed the ball,” Crowley said. “We had 17 assists, and [the players] were ready to shoot when they got the ball.”
Defensively, the Bonnies held UMass under 60 points and limited the Minutewomen to a shooting percentage of less than 38 percent from the field.
Crowley attributes the win to a renewed effort in practice and in games.
“Anything in life is difficult,” Crowley said. “People either say, ‘we’re going to change this,’ or they just keep rolling with the difficult thing. I think the majority of our team made the decision that we’re going to fix this, and they believed the way to fix it was through practice. They’ve done that.”
Although a win snaps its losing streak, the team knows that more needs to be done. However, some of the confidence that the Bonnies had lost has returned with the win.
“We’re excited to get to play Fordham and turn our losing streak into a winning one,” Healy said.
Crowley agreed, saying, “Anytime you have success, it helps your confidence.”
One win does little to improve the Bonnies’ record. They are 12-10 on the year, 2-7 in the Atlantic 10. However, just as their seven-game losing streak began with a single loss, so too must a winning streak begin with a single win.
