Rider sweeps Marist for 2nd time in three seasons
LAWRENCEVILLE >> Lea Favre didn’t know the play Rider women’s basketball coach Lynn Milligan called on the most crucial offensive possession, but her instincts told her to be available.
Of course the ball would end up in her hands.
Favre scored the go-ahead basket with 26 seconds remaining and the Broncs competed a season sweep of Marist with a 70-64 victory at Alumni Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.
“I’m going to tell coach now that I had no idea what we were running,” admitted Favre, who finished with 16 points. “I knew I was supposed to set a screen somewhere, but I saw that I was in front of the player, so I was like let’s get the ball and try and get a basket.”
Stella Johnson assisted on Favre’s basket and finished with 23 points, four rebounds and seven assists. The junior guard was also 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the final 13 seconds to ice the game.
The Broncs trailed by six after they ate an 11-0 Red Foxes run early in the fourth quarter, but Stella stopped the bleeding with a 3-pointer and Rider finished on an 18-6 run.
“We all knew what was killing us — our transition defense,” said senior point guard Lexi Posset, who scored 16 points. “Just being able to come together as a team and regroup on stopping them and everyone getting back was a huge piece of that because if you take out their transition offense, I think it’s hard to score against us.”
Milligan called this one of her team’s best performance of the season.
“I think we saw a good step today, but by no means are we where we want to be,” she said. “I think this was one of our better games this year, but I don’t think we’ve played our best basketball this season. Being able on your home floor to not panic and not crumble when a team makes a run, and they were going to make a run, but we responded the way we were supposed to with scores and stops.”
Rider (13-9, 9-2) cemented itself in second place ahead of Marist (178, 9-4), which is important because the second-place finisher earns a WNIT berth if regular-season champ (likely Quinnipiac) goes on to win the MAAC Tournament.
“We talked about it when we lost at Quinnipiac that we’re in the second half of our season in MAAC play,” Posset said. “The past nine games in MAAC are over with and we’re focusing on the next game up.”
This was the second time in the last three seasons the Broncs have swept the Red Foxes and if you were around for any of the 27 straight clobberings Marist put on Rider then you know how sweet this must feel.
“It’s been a long battle, it’s been a climb,” Milligan said. “It’s a credit to these young ladies next to me putting in the work and creating the culture we want this program to stand for over these last couple years . ... We’ve tried to build our program the right way with hard work and the right young ladies doing what they need to do and buying in with how we need to do things.
“It’s good for us to be where we are, but again, we haven’t really done anything yet expect take another really big step in our growth today.”
PRINCETON 93, BROWN 74 >> Gabrielle Rush made six 3s and finished with 22 points, Bella Alarie added 20 and the Tigers (11-9, 3-2) pulled away from the Bears (9-13, 1-5) in the fourth quarter and avoided a three-game home losing streak. Alarie also grabbed 16 rebounds for her fifth straight double-double.