The Quinnipiac women’s basketball team pulled away down the stretch on Monday evening as they defeated Central Connecticut State, 82-73. The win improves their record to 17-2 and is the best start in program history.
Senior guard Felicia Barron willed her team to the victory scoring 16 of her 25 points in the second half. She also chipped in with three rebounds and two assists. Barron led in the scoring, but it was a team effort with 10 players scoring for Quinnipiac.
“We were in a game today, we hadn’t seen one in a little while,” Quinnipiac head coach Tricia Fabbri, whose team has now won eight straight games. “Tonight was the night I really thought we needed senior leadership. We’ve been talking about rotations, we’ve been talking about our depth. But the beauty of that is that it’s 15 pieces to the puzzle and we have a really good team”
The Bobcat’s led throughout the entirety of the first half and took a 33-28 lead into halftime. However the script would change in the second half. The Blue Devils (11-8, 5-3 NEC) outscored Quinnipiac 8-2 at the start of the second frame to take their first lead of the game 36-35. Central Connecticut’s Jaclyn Babe registered a prolific scoring performance with 31 points for the No. 2 team in the NEC.
“We came out in the second half and cut it, then we got even with them, then we got up,” Babe said of a second half that saw six lead changes. “We knew that they were going to come back. They’re too good of a team to lie down and die. You had to know that they were going to fight back but we fought back too.”
The Bobcat bench – led by Ellen Cannon, Lisa Lebak and Nikoline Ostergaard – scored 19 of the Bobcat’s 49 second-half points to help pull away from the Blue Devils at the end of the game. Labek entered the second half for the first time with 14:07 to play and with her team trailing 47-45. She helped the Bobcat’s take the lead by scoring five of their next seven points and proved to be the spark that would finally allow Quinnipiac to stay out in front.
“We were struggling coming out in the second half,” Barron said. “They went on a run and our bench came in and turned the game around for us. Ellen Cannon hit a good three to help us get our momentum going because they were going on a run. They really did help us get our spirits up when we were down.”
The Bobcat’s snapped what was a five-game winning streak for the Blue Devils with the win.
