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7th-Ranked Bentley Continues Bid for NE-10 Title Saturday at Southern New Hampshire
WALTHAM, Mass. – After becoming the first NCAA Division II East Region team to reach the 20-win milestone, the Bentley University women's basketball team will continue its bid for the Northeast-10 Conference regular season title Saturday afternoon at Southern New Hampshire University. Tip-off is set for 1:30 pm.
Bentley's 69-58 win at St. Michael's earlier this week elevated the team's record to 20-3, making this the 27th time in 29 years that the Falcons have reached that level of excellence. It also maintained the team's one-game lead over Southern Connecticut in the conference standings, with the regular season down to four games remaining.
Coach Barbara Stevens' club, ranked seventh nationally in Division II, doesn't have a lot of room for error as the season winds down. The tiebreaker would go in Southern Connecticut's favor should the two teams finish tied, and the Owls' final four opponents are a combined 26-62 this season. In contrast, Bentley's final four are a combined 52-39.
Southern New Hampshire, 17-7 overall, will be looking to end a two-game slide on Saturday following losses to UMass-Lowell and Franklin Pierce. Those two L's have dropped the Penmen into a three-way tie for fifth place.
Sophomore forward Lauren Battista (North Easton/Oliver Ames HS) and junior guard Courtney Finn (Winthrop/Winthrop HS) have been the two constants in coach Barbara Stevens' lineup this season, and they are 1-2 on the club in both scoring and rebounds. Battista has followed up on last year's All-Conference rookie season with an even better one this winter, her averages including 17.4 points and 7.1 rebounds. Her field goal percentage is .542 and her free throw accuracy is up to .836.
Finn's scoring average is up to 11.3 and she has been the Falcons' best on the offensive boards, with 66. Wednesday's game at St. Michael's marked the ninth time in the last 13 games she's had at least four offensive rebounds.
Junior forward Caleigh Crowell (Harwich/Worcester Academy), who missed all of last season with a foot injury after transferring from Charleston, has emerged as one of the conference's top three-point threats. Her .477 accuracy mark from three in NE-10 games is second best, and she's averaged 14 points and 2.3 blocks in the last three contests.
Junior guard and co-captain Kelsey Roberson (Arlington/Arlington Catholic HS) has also been performing well of late. She's averaged nearly eight points and four assists off the bench in the last nine games, and has buried 14 of 27 three-pointers since Dec. 30.
While Bentley has scored below its conference-leading 72.9 scoring average in four straight games, SNHU has exceeded its scoring norm of 63.0 only once in its last seven games, a stretch in which the Penmen are just 3-4. They own the conference's top field goal percentage (.448), but have a tendency to be careless with the ball (112 turnovers in the last five games).
The main reason that SNHU tops the NE-10 in field goal percentage is six-foot-one junior Sloane Sorrell, who has made 59 percent of her shots while averaging a team-best 14.4 points. She can also be a factor at the defensive end with 25 blocks and 34 steals.
Guard Michelle DeRoma, also a junior, is the team's other double-figure scorer (10.0 ppg with 41 three-pointers), and senior Christine Duffy leads all of Division II in assists, averaging eight a game as well as 8.8 points and 1.7 steals. She only had one helper against Bentley in the earlier meeting, but delivered 16 in Tuesday's loss to Franklin Pierce.
Bentley won the first meeting in convincing fashion, 76-43, as it dominated the boards (48-29) and had a 31-8 edge in points off turnovers. Battista, sophomore forward Jacqui Brugliera (Fitchburg/ Wachusett Reg. HS) and Finn combined for 46 points, on 18-25 shooting, and 20 rebounds.
Next week, Bentley will play its final two regular season home games, hosting Franklin Pierce in a rematch of last year's NE-10 playoff final on Tuesday and Stonehill in the Play4Kay game on Saturday, when the Falcons will be raising funds for women's cancer research.
