Jan. 18—LORETTO — Hey, you know this winning thing? It's pretty fun.
Down 15 points early in the third quarter, the St. Francis University women's basketball team came back to win its third straight game after losing 14 in a row to start the season.
Lili Benzel tied a career high with 21 points and Jordan McLemore netted a season-high 15 in a breathtaking 70-62 Northeast Conference victory against Bryant on Monday at DeGol Arena.
Sam Miller added 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting for the Flash, while Jada Dapaa pulled down double-digit rebounds for the 10th time in the last 12 outings by grabbing 14 to go with eight points and five assists.
With both teams wearing "The NEC Speaks Up" T-shirts in honor of Martin Luther King Day, it really seems like the Red Flash have something to say now that they've evened their conference mark at 3-3. St. Francis shot 71.4% in the fourth quarter (10-of-14) to dissolve a 10-point Bulldog lead going into the frame and pull away at the end.
"It's great to have three wins. Obviously we're feeling pretty up right now," Dapaa said. "It's always fighting, staying in the game. It never ends until the last buzzer goes off. I think that's been a big key to some of these W's we've been getting. We just keep fighting and never giving up."
"We've got more games coming. Hopefully we'll get the same results."
Finishing strong, St. Francis has outscored its opponents 72-44 in the fourth quarter during the win streak.
"They're understanding how to come together. I'm really proud of them," Red Flash coach Keila Whittington said.
"We have people on the squad right now who are just refusing to lose."
St. Francis didn't lead in the second half until McLemore's field goal with 3:13 left made it 59-58.
The teams went back-and-forth for the next couple of possessions when Benzel's fifth 3-pointer of the game with 1:53 to go sparked a 9-0 SFU run to close it out.
A redshirt senior from Bishop Guilfoyle via Shippensburg University, the 5-7 Benzel made 7 of 13 shots to turn in her best scoring performance of the season. It was huge considering that Bryant contained St. Francis' top two scorers — senior Jenna Mastellone and Kaitlyn Maxwell.
"I was just trying to do whatever I could for the team and just play my role. I'm a shooter so I just keep shooting it," Benzel said. "My teammates and my coaches have confidence in me and try to put the ball in my hands. They have confidence that I'm going to knock it down."
McLemore, a senior transfer from Hartford who approaches playing point guard more as a facilitator than a scoring threat, scored seven points in the final 5:24. It's not only the most points she's scored as a member of the Red Flash, it's the fourth-most points she's scored as a college player.
It's also the longest winning streak McLemore's been part of in three seasons, since Hartford was 23-11 when she was a freshman.
"I'm just ecstatic," said McLemore, who finished 6-for-8 from the floor. "Every day (during the losing streak), we came in with a positive mindset so, as a team, we were motivating each other just to be positive. We can't be negative in no sense. There's no room for negativity."
Taking advantage of St. Francis' attention to the Bulldogs' strong post game, Bryant played inside-out and went 8-of-9 from 3-point range in the first half to surge to a 43-28 halftime lead. Most of the damage was done by Fatou Jallow, a 5-7 senior from Sweden who was 5-for-6 beyond the arc for 15 points over the first two quarters.
It was tied at 20 on Dapaa's layup at the 7:51 mark of the second quarter but the Red Flash went just 3-for-11 from the floor to close out the half, giving the red-hot Bulldogs the opportunity to put some distance between them and the hosts.
Mastellone and Maxwell only got five shots up over the first two quarters against an aggressive, overplaying Bryant defense in the first half, checking in with just two points.
The game was all even at 15 when McLemore came off a Dapaa screen for a foul-line jumper to end the first quarter. Dapaa keyed the Red Flash early with four points, four rebounds and three assists in the first 10 minutes.
"It feels good. We're seeing the things that we've been working on all season pay off," said Miller, a 6-foot-1 junior from Dallastown. "We're just taking it one game at a time. These three wins are great but we have the rest of the conference (schedule) to focus on."
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