Rider rallies past Iona in 4th quarter

Broncs face No. 25 Fairfield in quarterfinals

The players on the Rider women’s basketball team looked at each other before the start of the fourth quarter and were determined not to let their season end.

Taylor Langan and Sanaa Redmond scored 13 points each and the eighth-seeded Broncs delivered one of their best 10 minutes of the season to close out a 66-56 victory over ninth-seeded Iona in the opening round of the MAAC Tournament on Tuesday morning inside Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.

“We said the season comes down to 10 minutes,” Langan said. “We’re not up by 15, we’re not down by 15, so the game just basically restarted. We’ve played them three times so they knew exactly what we were going to do and we knew exactly what they were going to do. It came down to working hard and having a better mentality than them to finish out the game.”

Rider won the fourth quarter, 25-15, thanks in large part to Redmond who made three of her four field goal attempts and scored seven of her season-best 13 points. The Broncs shot 9-of-10 from the field in the period, which was part of a second-half effort in which they were 14-of-21

“We just knew it was win or go home,” Redmond, a junior, who transferred in from Samford and had reached double figures just twice this season prior to Tuesday’s outburst. “For all of our seniors, it was the last 10 minutes for them if we lost. We had to give everything that we had. We just had a team mentality. We didn’t care who scored or who did what. We just had to lock in for that last 10.”

Molly Lynch and Mariona Cos-Morales both added 10 points each for Rider (10-20), which snapped a four-game skid.

Cos-Morales was also effective on the defensive end against Gaels star Sierra DeAngelo. After DeAngelo scored 14 points in the first half, she was held to nine on 2-for-6 shooting in the second half after Cos-Morales switched on to her.

The Broncs have reached the semifinals in five of the last seven seasons, but to do that again they’ll have to upset top-seeded Fairfield. The Stags (28-1) went a perfect 20-0 in the MAAC on their way to the outright regular-season title and are ranked No. 25 in the AP Poll. They have won 26 straight games, which is the second longest streak in the country to undefeated and No. 1-ranked South Carolina.

Fairfield won both meetings this season by an average of 26 points per game, including the regularseason finale last Saturday by an 83-54 score.

“We’re very well aware that nobody is going to give us a chance to win,” coach Lynn Milligan said. “That’s doesn’t really matter. We know what we are up against. We are going to execute our stuff, execute or gameplan and we’re going to go out there and try and win a ballgame.”

Plus, it’s March, right?

“It’s the MAAC Tournament so it’s already a different atmosphere,” Milligan said. “It’s already a different game.”