By Nick Pipitone
Pride women’s basketball continued its smoldering play as of late with a 65-52 home win this past Sunday over Drexel University, increasing its win streak to four games. The win is the Pride’s eighth in its past 11 games.
With the win over the Dragons, the Pride has opened its conference play undefeated (3-0). Last Monday it eked out a win over Northeastern 79-76 in Boston and then Friday it outlasted Towson 71-63 in Maryland.
This past Sunday’s game ended a 46-day stretch that saw the Pride play just one home game from Nov. 23 to Jan. 7. During the long road trip the team amassed a 6-1 record away from the University’s Arena, its most road wins in a season since 1994-95.
It is safe to say that the Pride is starting to find its groove heading into conference play.
“I really believe that this team is special,” head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “I’ve been around a lot of good times before in my career, even as a player, and there’s something about this team that makes me feel like I can say that word ‘special’. I’m excited to be a part of this ride.”
In the win over the Dragons (6-6 overall, 1-1 CAA), the Pride (8-4, 3-0) wasted little time getting into the game. The Blue and Gold opened with a 13-2 run, with the exclamation point coming from sophomore point guard India Ali’s drive and foul at the 14:36 mark.
The Dragons narrowed the lead down to 27-21 going into halftime but the Pride kept up the pressure in the second half. After junior forward Lizanne Murphy’s jumper, it was up 43-27 at the 12:54 mark.
But, similar to the team’s other two conference wins this past week, the Blue and Gold could not finish off its opponent without a late-game scare. Drexel clawed back in the final ten minutes, putting together a 6-0 run to bring the Pride’s lead back down to ten.
Headed by solid inside play by Murphy and junior center Vanessa Gidden, the Dragons would not come any closer. Gidden finished with a game-high 21 points and 17 rebounds, two shy of her career mark which she set last season. Senior forward Amaka Agugua also posted 12 points and seven boards.
“When you come together and play as a team, the individual stuff comes along with it,” Gidden, who was named Long Island Newsday’s Female Athlete Player of the Week for the week of December 25, said. “I didn’t think about the rebounds, I just went up and got them.”
So far this season, Gidden is leading the team in PPG, RPG, and blocks.
The Pride head back on the road this Friday night when they travel to Old Dominion to face the 14-time defending CAA champion Lady Monarchs at 7 p.m. ODU, who has the toughest schedule in women’s basketball, is 3-7 overall but opened conference play with a 77-68 win at William and Mary January 8.
“We’re confident,” Jack said. “We went out and we played Kentucky, we played Connecticut, we played great teams out there already. We’ve been through the wars already. In order to be somebody, you have to play somebody.”