By Jonathan Sawyer
Sports Assignment Editor
The women’s basketball team is off to one of its best starts in school history, winning 16 straight games. The Bonnies longest winning streak was 18, back in the 2012-2013, where they went 14- 0 in conference play and made it to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Tournament. They currently sit atop the Atlantic 10 conference at 6-0. The women’s team continued their streak with a 59 to 54 victory over the Dayton University Flyers.
The Bonnies trailed the Flyers all night and didn’t start to hit their stride until the final five minutes of the game. The Bonnies went on a 15-0 run with five minutes left to close out a nail-biter against the Flyers. Sophomore Miranda Drummond hit the go-ahead three-pointer to give the Bonnies a one point lead with 23 seconds left. She finished the game with 23 points and nine rebounds as the leading scorer.
Senior Guard Katie Healy, who is averaging 14.7 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per game, posted a 22- point night against the Flyers. Healy feels that the senior leadership, including herself, has helped the team’s success.
“I try to lead through my play, but the leadership with the seniors have done a really good job at that. We always go hard and everybody puts the extra work in,” Healy said.
Healy says that with such a deep bench, the team is difficult for opposing teams to scout.
“When teams look at your starting five, they can scout you but they are not ready for the players coming off the bench that do the little things, which translates to open shots,” Healy said.
Head Coach Jim Crowley said his team stayed humble during its winning streak.
“Two things I am most pleased with is one, we have stayed very consistent with our effort and two, we have stayed locked in the moment; we haven’t been caught up in talking about that [winning streak],” Crowley said. “We have too many good opponents in front of us and we have stayed locked in and prepared for who’s next.”
Crowley goes on to mention why the team is different from last season. Last season, the Bonnies went 15-15 overall and 5-11 in conference play.
“There are a lot of visible things. We shoot the ball better; we defend better,” Crowley said. “But as a whole we are just more experienced. This is a team that has been through more together and understands what they are capable of and what they need to do to find success.”
Last season the Bonnies struggled getting into the paint, but this year’s team has had most of its success inside the paint.
“What we are doing really well is we are attacking the paint, what we call playing down-hill,” Crowley said. “We are getting to the paint, not only through passes, but we are attacking it through the drive, especially multiple times in a possession, which we put more pressure on the defense.”
The women will look to continue their streak on the road Saturday against Duquesne University, tip-off is at 2 p.m.
sawyerjp15@bonaventure.edu
