Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
On Saturday, the Roadrunner's women’s basketball team was defeated by the Rutgers-Camden Scarlet Raptors 57-43 in Camden in a New Jersey Athletic Conference matchup.
Despite entering half time tied at 22-22, the Scarlet Raptors were able to pull away by piling up 35 points in the second half.
“One team makes some plays and the other team doesn’t,” said Roadrunners head coach Mike Eineker. “We had a stretch where we got some good shots and didn’t finish. They had a stretch where they got some good shots and made them.”
In the first half, Ramapo rallied from a 10-point deficit to tie the game in the final seconds of the half on a layup from junior Grace Elliott.
Junior Kamari Talley led the way for Rutgers-Camden with 18 points, shooting 9 for 21 from the field in the match. Seniors Alex Gravinese and Tanjae Lewis each contributed 11 points for the Scarlet Raptors.
For the Roadrunners, freshman Jina Crawford led the way in points with 12 as she shot 6 for 11 from the field. Elliott and sophomore Kellie Lane each had 10 points in the game. The Roadrunners were outrebounded 55-29.
With the loss, the Roadrunners fall to 0-17 in the NJAC and 4-20 overall this season. Rutgers-Camden improves to 5-12 in the Conference and 9-15 this season. Neither team qualified for the NJAC Tournament.
“Our kids have been pretty good about coming and competing everyday. It's hard to do when you're playing games that don’t essentially mean a lot for this season,” Eineker said. “A lot of our games of recent have been to try to figure out some of our younger kids and who’s going to develop and who’s going to continue to get better.”
The Roadrunners will only graduate three seniors at the end of the season, and currently have five freshmen, three sophomores and two juniors on the roster.
“We have a long, long road ahead to try to improve to make our program better,” Eineker said.
Since Eineker took over as the Roadrunners’ head coach for the 2008-2009 season, the Roadrunners have made the NJAC Tournament three times. They qualified the past two seasons with a 9-9 NJAC record in 2013-2014, and a 10-6 Conference record in 2012-2013.
Eineker said that this season was a learning experience for his young team and that many of the players on the roster, including freshman and transfer students, were able to get a feel for the intensity of a season in the NJAC Conference.
He expects the team will take this season’s experiences and work in the offseason to come back more prepared next season and to become competitive in the Conference.
“I think they’ll learn that they will have to come and work everyday and that the challenges ahead of them are significant,” Eineker said. “The conference that we play in and the competition that we play is a huge challenge and hopefully they will learn from our seniors they have to have a really solid work ethic and come put in their time.”
mmontal1@ramapo.edu
