READING, Pa. – Behind strong defense, the Albright Lions women's basketball team avenged an early season loss to the Widener Pride with a 67-52 win at the Bollman Center on Saturday afternoon in MAC Commonwealth play.
With the win, the Lions improve to 13-5 overall and 8-1 in MAC Commonwealth play. Albright has now won six straight games and nine out of their last 10. Meanwhile, the Pride fall to 9-9 behind a 3-5 mark in conference play.
A pair of seniors led the way for the Lions on offense as
Nina Mazzarelli and
Alysha Lofton combined for 39 of the Lions 67 points on the afternoon. Mazzarelli posted 20 points, behind a 4-of-7 performance from beyond the arc, and added three rebounds and two steals. Lofton registered 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field in addition to five rebounds, five steals, four assists, and two blocks. Sophomore
Zaria Mohamed posted her fifth double-digit point effort in seven games off the bench with 11 points and eight rebounds. Senior
Jane Joyce tallied the most steals in a single game by a Lion in four years with seven in addition to a team-high 10 rebounds, six points, and six assists.
The Lions opened the game with back-to-back baskets from Lofton to take a 4-0 lead before the Pride used a 7-2 run to take a 7-6 lead at the 5:45-mark of the first quarter. Albright fought back with four straight points to take a 10-7 lead, and would not see the lead go over three as they took a 15-12 lead into the second quarter. A pair of Mazzarelli three-pointers would key an 8-2 start to the second quarter to give the Lions a 23-14 lead with 7:01 left in the first half. Albright's defense locked down the Pride in the second quarter as they did not allow a Widener field goal for nearly six minutes. The Lions forced 16 Widener turnovers in the first half and would take a 31-21 lead into the half after outscoring the Pride 7-3 in the final 4:53 of the half.
After the Lions took a 36-24 lead at the 7:24-mark in the third quarter, the Pride battled back over the next three minutes with nine unanswered points to cut the Albright lead down to three at 36-33. However, the Lions responded with a 9-2 run to close out the quarter to take a 44-35 lead into the fourth. Albright started the fourth on another 9-2 run to take its largest lead of the game with 7:02 left in the game as they held the Pride without a field goal for 8:16 over the third and fourth quarters. Widener mounted one last charge with a 7-1 run to cut the Lions lead down to 10 at 54-44 with 4:35 left, but the Lions scored five straight points and would hold on from there for the 15-point victory.
The Lions shot 37.9 percent (25-of-66) from the field and went 4-of-10 from beyond the arc with all four of them coming from Mazzarelli. Albright went 13-of-19 (68.4%) from the free throw line, and forced 23 turnovers. The Pride shot 31 percent (18-of-58) from the field after shooting just 28.6 percent in the first half. Widener went 16.7 percent (4-of-24) from beyond the arc and 12-of-19 (63.2%) from the free throw stripe. The Pride did become the first MAC Commonwealth team to outrebound the Lions this season so far as they held a 43-42 advantage which led to 13 second chance points.
Widener was led by Devan Rimmer who posted a team-high 14 points and added four rebounds, while Madison Ireland posted 13 points, four assists, three rebounds, and two steals in the loss.
Albright will return to action on Wednesday, Jan. 24th as they will travel to face Arcadia in the first of two road conference games this upcoming week for a 6 p.m. tip-off.
