Fayette women come up short in rally

By Mike Ciarochi

Herald-Standard

Heart and a never-say-die attitude helped Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus overcome dismal first-half shooting in an 81-71 loss to St. Joseph of Vermont Thursday night.

The top-seeded Fighting Saints (23-4) held off Fayette to advance to the semifinals in the women's Division II bracket of the USCAA National Championship Tournament at Fayette Campus. The Lady Roaring Lions fell to 8-18, but not without a fight.

Fayette overcame a 17.1 percent first-half shooting performance by playing solid defense against the top seed before getting hot down the stretch.

"We always beat ourselves," interim coach JaJuan Davis said when it was over. "We always get a lot of shots, but in the first half, we were missing open shots. We were missing layups."

But St. Joseph kept the Lady Roaring Lions in the game by committing 15 of its 29 turnovers in the first half. But the Fighting Saints managed 36 points and a 20-point lead at halftime.

"Like I told them, there are always two halves to a basketball game," Davis said. "We played with pride, we played better on defense and, once our shots started going in, you could see what kind of a team we have."

The Lady Roaring Lions cut the deficit to 14 before the Fighting Saints propped it back up to 20 and the lead kind of hovered around 20 points until it got to 24, 61-37, with 7:27 remaining in the game.

From that point, Fayette limited St. Joseph to 20 points and scored 34 to make it exciting for the Fayette faithful. They got as close as 75-71 with 45 seconds remaining, but the Fighting Saints made enough foul shots to preserve the win.

"It's never over until the final buzzer sounds," Davis said. "That's exactly why you foul when you are down, because it gives you a chance to get back in the game."

Freshman Ally Rudolph led Fayette with 18 points, including 15 in the second half, while Courtney Haines added 16, 12 coming after intermission. Kelsey Laurine scored 13, 11 in the second half.

"We always out-shoot whoever we play," Davis said. "We shot 86 times tonight (to 69 for St. Joseph). When you shoot 86 times, you can score 80 points consistently and that's huge."

Jazz Laracuente and Chontayvia Kennedy each scored 20 for the Fighting Saints, while USCAA All-American Regina Steele scored 18 and grabbed 21 rebounds.

"It's never fun losing," Davis stressed. "But when they fight through a 24-point deficit and make it interesting, it doesn't hurt as much."

While St. Joseph prepares for a semifinal matchup at 9 p.m. today in the Main Arena against the winner of last night's Albany College of Pharmacy-Penn State Hazelton game, Fayette prepares for a 4 p.m. consolation against the loser of that game in the Maltho.

So, what's next now that the national championship is out of reach for Fayette? 

"Now we rebuild," Davis said. "We're a young team. Now they know what it takes to be champions. It's up to us to use what we learned to make us stronger."