HAMDEN, CT — The Iona University women's basketball team dropped a 66-58 decision to league leading, Quinnipiac on Saturday afternoon. It was a four-quarter battle as Iona held serve in the first and third frames while the Bobcats won the second and deciding fourth quarter to secure the win at M&T Bank Arena.
The Maroon & Gold had four scorers in double figures and registered a season-high 10 made three-pointers on the day. Donnelly set a new career-high in scoring and Ward chipped in four rebounds and a team-high four assists. Sophomore duo
Emma Donnelly and
Zoey Ward led the Gaels with 12 points each. Senior tandem
Ella Fajardo and
Judith Gomez both tallied 11 points apiece.
THE RUNDOWN
Quinnipiac jumped out to an early 4-0 lead as the Iona offense was slow to start the game. Ward got the Gaels with a 6-2 run on a pair of knockdown triples to knot the score at 6-6. Iona continued to click with the next eight points on three-pointers from Gomez and senior
Erin Leary and a layup from senior
Talia DePetrillo for a 14-6 lead with 4:30 to go. Quinnipiac ended the frame with a 6-5 scoring margin to give Iona a 19-12 lead at the end of the quarter.
The Gaels held the slight lead for the opening minutes of the second frame, building to a 23-17 lead on four points by Donnelly with 6:34 left to go. The Bobcats offense punched back the rest of the quarter, going 6-of-8 from the field in the final five minutes. Quinnipiac outscored Iona 14-6 in that closing stretch to take a 31-29 lead into halftime.
Iona came out of the intermission with an 8-2 run to begin the third stanza. Gomez kicked it off with a layup followed by triples from DePetrillo and Ward for the 37-33 lead just over two minutes into the restart. It was back and forth action from there on with both teams trading blows. The Gaels capitalized on Quinnipiac foul trouble down the stretch to take a 50-43 lead at the end of the quarter. Iona outscored the Bobcats 21-12 in the third, led by six points from Ward.
Quinnipiac opened the final quarter with a 7-0 run to knot the game up at 50 with 6:24 left to play. A free throw from Fajardo at the 4:09 mark broke a scoreless drought for Iona, but the Bobcats used a four-point run to take the three-point lead with just over three minutes left to play. Leary broke up the run with a driving layup and cut the deficit down to one with 2:53 to go. The final minutes were all Quinnipiac with a 12-5 scoring margin including eight made free throws down the stretch to seal the 66-58 win.
IONA PERFORMERS
- Ward posted double figures scoring for the fifth time this season. She tied her career-high with three made three-pointers along with a 3-for-4 day at the charity stripe. Ward added four rebounds and a team-high four assists.
- Donnelly finished in double figures for the second time this year and recorded a career-high 12 points on 3-of-4 shooting and a 5-for-5 showing at the foul line.
- Fajardo registered double figures for the seventh time this year, going 4-of-7 from the field.
- Gomez recorded her eighth game with 10+ points and knocked down three plus triples for the fifth time this year. She also tallied four rebounds, two assists and two steals.
- Leary grabbed a team-high eight rebounds to go with five points.
THE OPPONENT
- Anna Foley registered a double-double for Quinnipiac with a game-high 21 points and 13 rebounds to go with three assists and two steals.
- Gal Raviv tallied 17 points along with four rebounds and four assists.
TEAM STATS
- Quinnipiac shot 42.4% for the game while Iona shot 37.3% from the field.
- Iona connected on a season-best 10 made three-pointers at a 40% clip and held Quinnipiac to just two made three-pointers.
- The Bobcats narrowly won the rebounding battle, 35-34.
- Quinnipiac forced 18 Iona turnovers leading to 19 points. The Gaels only forced nine turnovers and that led to 14 points.
UP NEXT
Iona heads to Western New York on Thursday, January 16 for a 6 p.m. matchup at Canisius. The Gaels will play just one game next weekend with a bye date on Saturday with the 13-team conference slate.
