Another loss for women's hoops after defeat by St. Joe's Hawks

02/03/09 - The University of Rhode Island women's basketball team lost its seventh home game of the season after falling to St. Joseph's University Saturday afternoon at the Ryan Center. The loss pushed the lady Rams three games below .500 as they fell to 9-12 overall. "All the credit goes to St. Joe's," head coach Tom Garrick said. "They came in here today 1-4 knowing that they needed to win, they played hard and their kids did the job. They just kept coming."

After winning the opening tip, the Hawks jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on a free throw from junior forward Brittany Ford. The Rams answered quickly with an 8-2 run, highlighted by four points from senior forward Sierra Cooper and two points a piece from senior guard Crystal Bellinger and sophomore guard Megan Shoniker. Cooper, Bellinger and Shoniker all scored in double figures, finishing with 16, 17 and 17 points respectively.

"[Balance] is the most important thing," Garrick said, "but even with those players in double figures, we needed to have more points. We're trying to get people to score but scoring has been tough for us."

A turn-around hook shot from Ford sparked a dominating 11-0 run by St. Joe's, as the Hawks jumped out to 14-8 run with just over 10 minutes remaining. Ford finished with a game-high 21 points while grabbing 10 boards.

"Obviously we didn't stop her," Garrick said. "I thought we had a game plan set forward to slow her down a little bit. We were supposed to be doubling her on the block but we didn't really do a good job of getting her far enough away from the basket that the double could get there."

Garrick repeatedly noted the absence of senior forward Tanja Licina who missed Saturday's game after injuring herself in the team's previous game at La Salle University.

"Having Tanja out hurts but we can't cry over spilt milk," he said. "We have players and they'll have to step up and pick up for their injured teammates. The kids that we had out there could have done a better job."

Things did not get much better for the Rams as they were outscored 17-9 during the final 10 minutes of play, entering the break trailing 31-17.

"I think we just fell into a little bit of an offensive lapse," Garrick said. "They're a gritty team who never stops and we knew that coming in. We knew that once we started struggling on offense, it was going to be an uphill battle."

The Hawks came out strong in the second half as two three-pointers from sophomore forward Dominique Bryant gave them their biggest lead at 42-24 with 15:45 remaining. A reverse lay-up from Bellinger sparked a comeback for the Rams, as Rhody exploded for a 10-0 run led by Bellinger, Shoniker and Cooper.

A runner off the glass from the Hawks' junior guard Mariame Djouara pushed St. Joe's lead back to 10 and ended Rhode Island's comeback.

"We opened up the floor a little bit in the second half," Garrick said. "That helped us a little bit but we knew we were going to have to up-tempo the game. By the time we started to press and change the momentum of the game we just ran out of gas."

The Rams continued to battle back and used an 11-2 run, capped off by a lay-up from Bellinger, to cut the deficit down to three at 55-52. The Hawks began to pull away, however, and with a 61-56 lead with just over a minute remaining, hit eight consecutive free-throws to ice a 69-61 victory.

The Rams look to get back on track tonight as they host the University of Massachusetts. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.