Antigonish, NS – The Memorial Sea-Hawks played to an 80-72 win over the StFX X-Women Saturday night at the StFX Oland Centre in a close game that was decided in the fourth quarter.
The game started out with even scoring throughout the opening five minutes of play. The X-Women had their largest lead of the quarter at 17-11 at the five-minute mark. The Sea-Hawks fought back and kept the score even. X was up 22-21 after the opening quarter.
The close play continued in the second quarter. Sydney Stewart (London, ON) hit a three-pointer for the Sea-Hawks that knotted the game at 24-24. In a fast-paced opening, the teams continued to trade baskets, keeping the score close.
As the quarter went on both teams struggled at times on offense. The X-Women went up 33-28 with two minutes left on a Jamie McCarron (New Glasgow, NS) three-point shot. Sammi Deakin-Sharpe (Wynnum, AU) answered with a three for Memorial in the final minute and pulled the score to 37-33 for the X-Women at halftime.
Stewart netted 11 first half points for the Sea-Hawks, while Kimberly Kingsbury (Nepean, ON) scored 15 for StFX who outscored their opponents 15-12 in the second quarter of play.
Brianna Gottschall (Antigonish, NS) started the X-Women off strongly in the third quarter nailing a basket from behind the arc. StFX extended their lead to 49-40 midway through the quarter. The Sea-Hawks stayed close however, and were down by a point, 54-53, after three full quarters.
Memorial continued their momentum into the fourth quarter and built up a five-point lead in the opening two minutes. The teams shared a couple heated exchanges early on as tempers boiled over and MUN's Stewart and StFX's Gottschall were assigned technical fouls. X-Women center Katie MacIntosh (Barrie, ON) fouled out of the game with 5:49 left to play.
Sea-Hawks guard Sydney Ezekiel (St. John's, NL) was clutch down the stretch for the Sea-Hawks. She made a key basket after a steal under their own hoop to give her team a 66-60 lead. The X-Women fought back and closed the gap to 69-66 with three minutes left to play and found themselves down 73-70 with 1:25 left.
The Sea-Hawks then kicked it up and shut down the X-Women as Ezekiel sunk a jumper and then a three-pointer to go up 79-70 late in the game. They closed out the 80-72 win, keeping the X-Women from finding their first victory of the season.
Ezekiel finished with 21 points and five rebounds on the night as she earned Subway player of the game honours. Stewart also had 21 points and led the team with six rebounds.
Brooklyn Wright (Cambridge, ON) contributed 11 points and Haille Nickerson (Grimsby, ON) scored 10 off the bench.
For the X-Women, Kingsbury finished with 17 points on the night and also had five rebounds. Player of the game Gottschall scored 15 and added to her double-double effort with 10 rebounds.
McCarron scored 16 and Samantha Minicucci (Mississauga, ON) contributed 11.
The same two squads will be back on Coach K Court for a rematch Sunday at 1:00 pm. Both games are worth a key four points apiece in the AUS standings.
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Courtesy Krista McKenna, StFX Sports Information