Merrimack College Athletics

Women's Basketball Wins at Le Moyne, 63-55

1/12/2010 12:00:00 AM

SYRACUSE, NY -  Scoring 19 points off of 20 Dolphin turnovers, the Merrimack women's basketball team won their fourth game in the last five outings of the year over Le Moyne College Tuesday evening in Syracuse, 63-55.

Senior captain Casey Miller (Fairbanks, AK) led all scorers with 22 points, including 15 in the first half.

Freshman Kelly Schatzlein (Tolland, CT) also tallied a solid overall game with nine points, eight boards, three blocks and two steals in 34 minutes of play.

1^st Half

Merrimack got off to a hot start to build a 17-4 lead at the five minute mark on a jumper from Genn Roy (Granby, MA) as part of her seven points in that time.  Miller also scored eight of her team-high 22 to get the Warriors offense jump-started.

Merrimack would go on to score 13 points off turnovers in the first half in a game the Warriors led in all but two minutes of the game.

Miller would connect on three of her four threes in the game in the first half as part of Merrimack's eight threes on the afternoon.

2^nd Half

In the second half, Le Moyne would climb to within four points on two separate occasions (18:46; 1:06), but 4-of-19 shooting from beyond the arc prevented the Dolphins from pulling evening with the visitors.

Despite being out-rebounded 43-33, Merrimack had eight steals and connected on 9-of-11 free throws in the second half.

Early in the second half, five different Warriors scored to go on a 13-4 run to push the lead to 43-32 five minutes into the half.

In the final minute, Miller, Roy and junior captain Sarah Benischek (Shrub Oak, NY) all hit both of their free throws in the bonus while Le Moyne resorted to fouling.  Benischek also finished the game with a career-high six assists.

"We still just need to take it one game at a time," said head coach Helen Williams following her team's improvement to 4-6 in the Conference and 6-9 overall.  "We don't look past our next opponent and that's helped us keep our focus.  We took care of the ball tonight too, which helped us get off to a good start."

The Warriors return to action at home on Saturday against Adelphi University for a 1:00pm tip-off against the Panthers who have yet to win a conference contest (2-12, 0-10 NE-10) after dropping a 59-52 decision Tuesday evening at home against UMass-Lowell.