BY: WILL NUNN; SPORTS ASSIGNMENT EDITOR
Photo: BonniesWBB / X
The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team had its season come to an unceremonious end with a 60-50 loss to Saint Louis in the opening round of the Atlantic 10 Championship on March 5.
Freshman forward Caitlin Frost led the way for the Bonnies with 14 points and seven rebounds in the loss, while freshman guard Zoe Shaw added 13 points and a team-high three assists. The Billikens were led by senior guard Kennedy Calhoun who paced all scorers with 20 points.
The Bonnies concluded their season with a record of 6-24, and 2-16 in the conference, improving slightly from the 4-26 (1-17, A-10) record from a season ago.
The season got off to a promising start, as the Brown and White took down in-state foe Binghamton in their season opener at the Reilly Center 82-61 behind 19 points from senior guard Isabellah Middleton.
The Bonnies’ early-season success continued as they pulled off a 66-63 win over rival Canisius, led by senior guard Dani Haskell who scored a career-high 29 points against her former school.
The rest of the season would not be as smooth however. Injuries to veteran leaders plagued the Bonnies, as Middleton and senior guard Payton Fields went down in non-conference play, and Bonaventure entered A-10 play with a 4-7 record.
A-10 play was not kind to the Bonnies, as Bonaventure dropped its first three conference games before squeezing by Saint Louis 68-66 led by 21 points from Haskell and 19 points and nine rebounds from Frost.
The Bonnies would go on to lose their next 11 games, starting with a 67-58 loss to UMass on Jan. 12, and ending the streak on February 22 at La Salle, winning 48-41. That would be the victory of Bonaventure’s season, losing to Duquesne and Dayton to close out the regular season before its first-round exit in the A-10 Championship.
The most poignant struggles for the Bonnies were on the offensive end of the floor. Their 53.1 points per game ranked 11th-worst in the country. They also ranked 18th-worst in the nation, shooting just 36% from the field.
Haskell led Bonaventure’s offense, averaging 13 points per game, followed by Shaw who scored 11 points per game and led the Bonnies with 2.2 assists per game. Frost’s 5.5 rebounds per game led the team.
After the injuries to upperclassmen, the Bonnies turned to freshmen to pick up the lost production. Six freshmen played in 15 or more games for the Bonnies this season. By the end of the year, freshmen guards Mackenzie Pettinelli and Hannah Richardson joined Frost and Shaw, as the Bonnies placed four freshmen in their starting lineup.
Pettinelli joined Haskell and Shaw as the only three Bonnies to play in all 30 games this season, and averaged 4.7 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, shooting 41.5% from the field in her freshman campaign.
The Bonnies will graduate just four seniors this year, and the six freshmen who gained valuable experience this season will look to be the cornerstone of a new era in a struggling program.
