Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics.
It was a tough loss for the Ramapo College women’s basketball team on Monday night as they fell to Kean University for the second time this season. It was a battle until the end, but Kean was able to hold the lead and take home the road win, defeating Ramapo 66-58.
Ramapo started the game off strong and took the lead first. They were able to firmly maintain this lead up until the last two minutes of action in the first quarter. It was at this point Kean was able to make a 9-0 run, led by the Cougars’ Brittany Graff.
The Roadrunners would respond in the second quarter with their own 6-0 run, led by Jackie Ventricelli.
Each time it looked like Kean would soon pull away, making it hard for Ramapo to stay in the game, the Roadrunners fought back. Once again, in the second quarter, Ramapo’s offense slowed while Kean’s picked up.
However, just as Kean had a strong ending to the first quarter, Ramapo would have a strong ending to the second.
Ramapo’s Bridget Cahill would score a jumper and three-pointer back-to-back in order to keep Ramapo in the game. Then, seconds before halftime, Ramapo’s Lyndsey Ross would make a three-pointer to tie the score. At halftime, the game was tied at 32-32.
The third quarter would be known as the moment that the game started to slip away from Ramapo, with Kean outscoring them 22-12, taking their biggest lead of the night at 54-44.
Ramapo did not let the score get to them as they fought back to try and retake the lead. As the Roadrunners refused to give up, they outscored Kean 14-12 in the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, it was just not enough to erase the deficit. The final score of the game was 66-58 as Kean took their second win against Ramapo this season.
In the match-up, Ramapo’s Alie Wickersheim posted her fifth double-double of the season, scoring 15 points along with 10 rebounds. Ramapo’s leading scorer of the night was Jada Thompson with 16 points. Thompson also led the Roadrunners with a team high of four assists.
“Although we came away with a loss, I feel like the biggest thing our team is going to take away from this game moving forward is growth,” said Thompson when asked about what Ramapo will carry from this game into the future. “Every win or loss we’ve accrued during the season has only continued to push us to keep working hard and grow not only as a team, but as individual players as well.”
Thompson continued, “Many times, a loss can put you down, but instead we decide to come back to practice the next day, work hard and continue to improve even against adversity. We have a lot of talent on our team, probably the most this program has had in a while, we simply just need to put the pieces together and learn how to finish out games. Once we do that, I am confident that we can make a good run in the NJAC tournament and start to pull out wins.”
Ramapo now drops to 7-9 overall on the season and 6-7 in conference play. Kean now ranks 11-2 in the conference, and 12-6 overall.
The Roadrunners return to action on Wednesday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. when they travel to Rutgers-Newark for another New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) match-up. Their next home game is on Saturday, Feb. 5, when they host New Jersey City University at the Bradley Center at 1 p.m..
twaschek@ramapo.edu
