It was a heartbreaker Friday night in the Sewall Center
The Pride jumped all over the Colonials in the early
minutes, coming out to a 6-0 lead. Hofstra’s aggressive, in-your-face style of
play looked to be intimidating the Colonials early on. Eventually RMU settled
the game down and scored seven straight to make it a 7-6 game.
It seemed as if Hofstra’s game plan throughout the game was
to cause turnovers and create most of their points off of those turnovers.
Early on in the first half, they did just that, gathering six steals in the
first five minutes of the game. However, their risks started to come back to
bite them, and RMU actually had the turnover advantage at the end of the first
half. Many of the points in the first half were made at the free throw line;
there were a combined 18 team fouls in the first 10 minutes of the game. The
major concern for the Colonials in the first half was fouls. All of their post
players had at least 2 fouls going into halftime, so there were adjustments
that needed to be made in order to stay in the game. The Colonials hung with
the Pride for the most part in the first half, but left for the locker room at halftime
down 34-29.
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| RMU fell to Hofstra in the season opener. |
The second half was a much better showing for the colonials.
They kept fouls and turnovers to a minimum. The game was extremely competitive
down to the last possession. There were a total of 6 lead changes in the second
half and the score was tied a total of 8 times. Both teams kept their fouls
down for the most part in the second half, mostly out of necessity so no
players would foul out. Finding themselves down by two with 53 seconds left in
the game, RMU had their backs up against the wall.
RMU had to foul Dee Thomas-Palmer after giving up an
offensive rebound with 34 seconds in the game. Thomas-Palmer missed the front
end of the 1-and-1 and the game was the Colonials’ to lose. On the final
possession, it became obvious that Coach Sal wanted to get the ball in Ashley
Ravelli’s hands to make a three and clinch the win. Hofstra defended the three
ball extremely well and forced Ravelli to take a heavily contested jumper from
the elbow. Unfortunately for RMU, the shot did not fall and the Colonials
started the season 0-1.
Although RMU was on the losing side of this game, I saw a
lot of positive play coming from the ladies. The most impressive player on the
floor is Senior Forward, and defending NEC Player of the Year, Artemis Spanou.
She played to her strengths last night, pulling down 10 boards (four offensive)
and racking up 16 points, including a clutch 3-pointer in the last couple
minutes of the game. Freshman Point Guard Anna Niki Stamolamprou was the most
surprising player on the court for me. She drained 4 of 6 3-pointers, got four
steals, and even got more points than there are letters in her last name.
Another surprising performance came from Senior Forward Jolie Olingende. In her
20 minutes of game time, she held down the post and got six offensive boards.
The team has much more depth compared to other years, and there is no specific
area where they have a glaring hole.
The team still obviously needs to iron out some of their
wrinkles. The game is being called much more strictly than ever before, and if
anybody could tell you that it would be Freshman Center Cassie Oursler. Oursler
accumulated two personal fouls extremely early in the game, and got a third
when she substituted back in later in the first half. Because of her foul
trouble, she only totaled 10 minutes of game time. The Colonials need to work
on their free throw shooting as well. They shot 20-30 from the line. Two of the
team’s better free throw shooters, Ashley Ravelli and Artemis Spanou, shot a
combined 11-19 from the line. With fouls being called more, a free throw
shooting percentage that low will not win you a lot of games. Unfortunately for
the Colonials, Senior Forward Kelly Hartwell was injured in the second half and
only played for 24 minutes. Ashley Ravelli showed some signs of a possible
injury in the second half as well.
Overall, the game could have been a lot worse for RMU. Even
though the ladies came up short against Hofstra, there is a lot of potential on
the team. I see freshmen and sophomores contributing to the game and impressive
leadership from the seniors, especially Artemis. In the grand scheme of things,
a non-conference game at the very beginning of the year never means too much.
The crowd really got into the game in the final minutes, and the pep band sounded
especially good. Hopefully the ladies keep getting energy like this from the
RMU faithful throughout the season. I think that this season looks promising
for the RMU Women’s basketball team, but only time will tell.
--Aaron Hartman
--@RedHeadBand7
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