Lady Royals cruise past unbeaten E-Town
Jan. 14—SCRANTON — Elizabethtown walked into the John Long Center on Friday with all the momentum a college basketball team could want. An unbeaten record. A fresh national ranking in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association poll. A well-earned share of the top spot in the Landmark Conference women's basketball standings.
Momentum hasn't meant much all season for opponents when the University of Scranton gets going, though. On Friday night, in front of a raucous crowd, the Lady Royals once again flexed their muscle.
Freshman Kaci Kranson scored 29 points, and the No. 6 Lady Royals ruined the No. 19 Blue Jays' previously perfect record with an overwhelming effort on both ends of the court that led to a convincing and thorough 87-67 triumph.
The win is the third of the season for the Lady Royals against a ranked team, and they now have four against teams that received votes in the most recent WBCA and d3hoops.com polls. Three of them have been by at least
20 points.
"We came in this week knowing this was going to be a strong, tough team," said Kranson, the Holy Cross graduate, after shattering her career high in scoring. "They're ranked, and they have very good, all-around players. We knew we had to stop them on defense and box them out on offense, because they're averaging crazy numbers for offensive rebounds. But we came in with a positive mindset and team chemistry, playing the game we know."
Elizabethtown actually got off to a strong start offensively, behind some of those offensive rebounds. They stayed close in the first quarter on the strength of long-range sharpshooting by Summer McNulty and Cyleigh Wilson and a 5-to-1 edge on the offensive glass that provided them with enough second chances to overcome hot starts for Kranson and teammate Bridget Monaghan.
But the edge on the offensive boards quickly dissipated. After the first quarter, Scranton dominated even there, building a 14-to-5 advantage in the category and beating the Blue Jays at their own game while also consistently executing their own.
When Kranson and Monaghan weren't knocking down jumpers or driving to the hoop for buckets, Maddy Ryan was cleaning up messes. The junior forward scored 10 points in the second quarter, including a layup at the buzzer that sent the Lady Royals into the locker room with a 44-34 lead. Ryan finished with 24 points, giving the Lady Royals a second player with a career high in points in the game.
The sheer power of the unbeaten Lady Royals, though, wasn't seen until the opening minutes of the second half, when they essentially sealed the Blue Jays' fate with an 11-0 run out of the chute.
Sam Rajza hit a 3 from the wing to start the onslaught, then intercepted a pass that led to her assisting on a Monaghan triple. Monaghan chipped in with 17 points, four of which came during that run. But the star then was the Lady Royals defense, which forced six Elizabethtown turnovers in the first 3:35 of the half and built a lead that would never get closer than 13 the rest of the way.
"The wings do a good job of collapsing the middle, so there is a lot of easy baskets," Ryan said. "We're all taught to crash for offensive rebounds, and that helped us a lot with second chances. But I think our defense is really what won us this game."
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