SCRANTON \u2014 Another solid all-around performance enabled the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team to knock off Tufts University, 73-42, in a nonconference matchup Sunday afternoon at the John Long Center.<\/p>\n
Four players scored in double figures for the No. 2-ranked Lady Royals (6-0), led by Kaci Kranson with 18 points. Katie Gorski and Elizabeth Bennett each posted double doubles as Gorski had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Bennett 11 points and 10 boards. Meghan Lamanna chipped in 11 points.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Scranton forced 19 Tufts turnovers, off which it scored 23 points, and held the Jumbos to 34.1% shooting from the field (15 for 44). Gorski had three steals and two blocks. Also, the Lady Royals held a 39-29 rebounding advantage, including 17-8 on the offensive boards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk a lot that you need talented players to win, which we have,\u201d Scranton coach Ben O\u2019Brien said. \u201cBut we also talk about being tenacious on defense and together on offense. I think those things came together in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It spoiled a homecoming for former Lady Royals standout Meredith Mesaris, who is in her first season as Tufts coach. Mesaris played at Scranton from 2012-15 and ranks fourth on the school\u2019s all-time scoring list with 1,758 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir defense was really good. They have some length that we\u2019re definitely missing inside and their guard position,\u201d Mesaris said. \u201cThey did a really good job of rebounding on the offensive side and definitely capitalized on our turnovers and mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mesaris was impressed with the Lady Royals, especially after hearing they upset Division I University of Pittsburgh last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was great for Division III in general,\u201d Mesaris said. \u201cI had a lot of outreach, obviously, because I\u2019m an alum. I\u2019m happy for them, happy for their success. I think they\u2019re going to have a really great season and long postseason run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Annie Ryan free throws with 6:27 left in the second quarter had Tufts within 25-21. But the Lady Royals turned up the defense, outscoring the Jumbos the rest of the quarter, 15-2, to open a 40-23 halftime lead. Kranson had six points in the run, Gorski and Sophia Talutto four each and Kaitlyn Raguso two.<\/p>\n
During that stretch, Tufts missed five of six shots and committed five turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew coming into the game that they are a very good and talented team that always plays hard,\u201d Gorski said. \u201cWe knew they would make some shots, so we had to keep sticking to our defense and pressure them on the back end so they had a hard time getting into their offense and their 3-point shots. The more we stuck with it, we were able to get a lot of stops and steals and take them out of it. That definitely was a big factor.\u201d<\/p>\n
To begin the second half, the Lady Royals continued the run by scoring the first nine points of the third quarter. Kaeli Romanowski, Kranson and Gorski had baskets and Lamanna hit a 3-pointer to make it 49-23 with seven minutes left.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team is very big on not caring who scores, caring that we score,\u201d Gorski said. \u201cWe\u2019re very generous with the ball. If we have a good shot, but our teammate has a better shot, we\u2019ll make that extra pass. We like to make sure we get the best shot every single time and it shows with multiple people having double figures. Teams can\u2019t really guard multiple scorers like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two free throws by Talutto one minute into the fourth quarter gave the Lady Royals their largest lead, 64-32.<\/p>\n
Coming off the upset victory over Pitt last Sunday, it might have been easy for the Lady Royals to have a bit of a letdown this week. Instead, they went 3-0, not allowing 50 points in any game and winning by an average margin of 32 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach immediately told us that Pitt was a great win, it was great to enjoy that, but now the only important thing that matters is the next game,\u201d Gorski said. \u201cWe have to leave all that in the past and prove to people what we can do. Every game needs to be better. We can\u2019t get strung up on the attention that we got from Pitt. We need to keep on focusing on the next game, which today was Tufts.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien was pleased with how his team responded, especially in Wednesday\u2019s Landmark Conference opener at Drew.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us were in a situation we had never experienced before and weren\u2019t sure how we would respond,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cI thought that first game was important to put the Pitt game behind us. They came out very intense. I was proud of the way we played in the Drew game.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Tufts (3-2), Mesaris said her team is young, but has a high ceiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing two first-years almost 40 minutes and a lot of kids who had injuries last year or were playing behind grad students,\u201d Mesaris said. \u201cSo we have a lot of inexperience and a lot of young kids. Just trying to figure out how to play through this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Another solid all-around performance enabled the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team to knock off Tufts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2300,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-42739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}