Photo by Jenna Bengivenga
The Ramapo College women’s basketball team lost their home opener on Sunday against King’s College 56-38. The Roadrunners fell to 0-2 overall, and the King’s College Monarchs are now 1-0.
The lady Roadrunners struggled offensively, shooting just 25.4 percent from the field, while King’s College shot 33.9 percent, including 10 three-pointers made.
“I don’t think we’re a great shooting team off the bat. One thing we did was take a lot of shots early in the shot clock,” explained head coach Mike Eineker. “When we do that we make the game more up tempo than we want it. We let the defense off the hook and only made them defend for eight or nine seconds. We would be on defense for 25 or 30 seconds, then have a quick possession and that effected our shooting.”
After some back and forth early in the first quarter, a jumper by Ramapo senior center Grace Elliot tied the game at eight. After this basket, the Roadrunners did not score for the next 7:06 in the game and fell behind 16-8, until Elliot was able to hit another two-point jumper.
The Roadrunners trailed 23-15 heading into the half and fell behind even more after King’s College began the third quarter on an 11-2 run. Ramapo then fought back as they went on a 14-1 run to end the quarter, having six different players score during the run.
Ramapo entered the fourth quarter down 35-32, but went cold as they fell behind 46-32, and did not score in the first 5:01 of the quarter. They eventually cut the lead to 11, but that was as close as they would get and their effort came up short.
“In the second and third quarter we got away from the quick shot routine, but in the fourth we went back to it. We did have some really good looks, but couldn’t finish. We didn’t have a basket for about five minutes. We also didn’t use the free throw line at all and usually we are a team that does that,” said Eineker.
The Roadrunners will return to action as they will host the Roadrunner Tip-Off Tournament, as Old Westbury, Saint Elizabeth and Penn State-Harrisburg will all travel to Mahwah for the two-day event. Ramapo will play Penn State-Harrisburg on Friday as they look to bounce back from their 0-2 start.
“The good thing about basketball is you have another game coming up soon. You don’t have time to stress over the start. Our goal is just to improve every day and see what the next day brings. We want to try and keep the score close to the last few minutes and try and come away with a win,” Eineker said.
rrinsky@ramapo.edu
