Women’s Action: Lady Colonials’ seven game win streak snapped

by Aaron Hartman, contributor

Monday night marks the first game of the second half of conference play, the part of the season that is most crucial towards postseason success.

The second half of the season is extremely important for a number of reasons. Teams can build up a lot of momentum to make a huge postseason run (See: The Mount Men’s team last postseason), teams can work to clinch the regular season conference championship, and teams can fix the mistakes they may have made in the first match up earlier in the season. Monday night, Wagner’s women’s team seemed to fix every mistake they made in their match up against RMU earlier this year.

Wagner beat RMU for the first time since 2005 in a game that they pretty much dominated. Although the game was close up until the very end--when Wagner ended the game on a 15-1 run-- the Colonials never seemed to be in close contention to win. Artemis Spanou was held to only five points all game, and Ashley Ravelli was 2-19 from the floor and 0-7 from behind the arc before fouling out with roughly four minutes left in the game.

When RMU met up with Wagner last time, the Colonials won by forcing Wagner to turn the ball over and making free throws. They did neither of those things Monday night as they recorded eight steals (compared to Wagner’s ten) and were 7-13 from the line (compared to Wagner’s 16-25).

I think that the Colonials were victims of being on the road, having just played a game that they won at Mount St. Mary’s, where the ladies win a pretty big game. The Colonials were also outcoached. It’s really the first time this year that the game plan just felt off. Wagner has as many, if not more, weaknesses as any team in the NEC and the Colonials didn’t really take advantage of them. We have the best rebounder in NEC history in Artemis, but yet we still allowed Jasmine Nwajei to collect 24 rebounds that game.

The other teams in the NEC will look at this game and realize that there is a definite formula to beating RMU. That formula definitely includes spending as much man power as possible on Artemis. I have faith that Coach Sal will be able to figure out a way to get the pressure off of Arty.

On a positive note, Freshmen Cassie Oursler and Anna Niki Stamolamprou both had very good games. Every time the announcer would praise an RMU player, he would be saying one of their names. I feel very good about their future at RMU. I still stand behind my prediction earlier this year when I said that Stamolamprou could win NEC Rookie of the year.

The women’s team is now in danger of conceding the first place spot in the NEC for the first time all season. Sacred Heart will be playing LIU Brooklyn tomorrow night, and if they win, Sacred Heart will hold the tiebreaker against us. This makes the home game against Sacred Heart on February 10 very crucial for the postseason picture.

It looks like at least one team found a way to exploit the weaknesses of our team, but that doesn’t mean we cannot adjust. The number one overall seed in the conference tournament is very much within our reach, and if I were to bet, I would bet on the Colonials to win the regular season Conference Championship.