Box Score BOSTON, Mass. – The Manhattanville women's basketball team suffered its first loss of the 2012-13 season as they fell in the championship game of the UMass Boston Tip-Off Classic to the host Beacons by the score of 67-62 on Sunday afternoon.
In the game, the Valiants were led by senior
Taylor Wilson (Pearl River, N.Y./Pearl River), who finished the game with a career-best 26 points. The mark tied her previous career-high, which was set in last season's opener against William Paterson on November 15.
After the weekend series both Wilson and sophomore Alyson Caiazzo were named to the All-Tournament Team for their efforts over the weekend. For Wilson she finished with 43 points in the two contests, while Caiazzo had a pair of double-doubles including a 19-rebound performance in the season opener against Colby-Sawyer.
The opening stages of the contest saw UMass Boston get on the board first, but Manhattanville answered back with nine straight points as the Valiant seniors took over as no one aside from Wilson and classmate
Jennifer McSharar (Garnerville, N.Y./North Rockland) scored through the first 2:23 for Manhattanville.
It turned into a battle of the turnover as both teams combined for eight turnovers with neither side getting a point from 17:01 to go until there was 13:17 on the clock. At that time Wilson sank a jumper, and after a Beacon basket, Wilson came down the floor again and hit a three-pointer.
After the game was tied a few times at 18 points, and 25 points, Manhattanville finished off the first period with four straight on layups by Caiazzo to send the Valiants into the locker room with a 35-28 lead.
In the second half, sophomore
Bri Pabon (Newington, Conn./Newington) netted a basket to put Manhattanville up by nine just 21 seconds into the frame. UMass Boston then raced back with a 12-0 run and retook the lead at 40-37.
McSharar ended the run with a layup to pull the Valiants within one, and started a trend of layups that saw the lead seesaw between one and three points for the Beacons. Wilson decided it was enough with the layups and sent home another three-pointer to put Manhattanville back up at 46-44.
As Manhattanville began to pull away again with a seven-point edge, the Beacons refused to quit as Teresa Pina drilled a three-pointer to start a 16-3 stretch for UMass Boston that saw the Beacons go up 61-57.
As Manhattanville began the fouling process towards the end of the game, the Beacons responded by hitting 6-of-10 from the charity stripe to ice the game at 67-60. Caiazzo hit a buzzer-beating layup at the end of regulation to make the final score 67-62 as the team dropped it's first of the young season.
Both teams shot evenly from the floor as Manhattanville was 24-of-65 (36.9%) and UMass Boston was 23-of-59 (39.0%), rebounds were also close as the Valiants had 45 to the Beacons' 41. Turnovers in the game were identical at 22 apiece, but the difference in the contest was points off of turnovers as UMass Boston capitalized for 19 while Manhattanville only mustered nine.
Manhattanville (1-1) will look to bounce back when they open the home portion of the schedule against Purchase College in the annual “Battle for Anderson Hill Road” against their hamlet rivals. Game time is slated for 6:00 p.m. with live stats of the game available on GoValiants.com. UMass Boston (2-0) will travel to take on Fitchburg State at 5:30 p.m. also on Tuesday evening.
