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BRONX, N.Y. - The St. Bonaventure women's basketball team (9-19, 2-11) fought hard in the second half but came up short at Fordham in a game the Bonnies had to have to stay alive for the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Fordham came out in the first half with a hot hand. Erin Rooney canned a triple on their second offensive possession which became the first of a barrage of threes that the Rams would rain down on the Bonnies in the first half.
Rooney stuck her second trey of the evening two minutes later to give Fordham a 12-4 lead. CeCe Dixon answered with back-to-back threes on the other end to cut the lead to 12-10. Fordham later hit triples on back-to-back possessions to claim a 22-13 advantage and force Coach Crowley to take a quick timeout.
Following an Alaina Walker jumper jumper, Abigail Corning came down and drilled yet another Fordham three ball. Two possessions later it was Rooney from deep for a third time giving the Rams a 28-15 advantage. The Rams continued their hot shooting right up until halftime, closing out the first 20 minutes with a 41-27 lead.
The 41 points were tied for a first-half season high for an SBU opponent. The other came against No. 8 Georgia back in December. The most threes the Bonnies had allowed in a single game in 2012-13 stood at 10 coming into Wednesday's contest. Fordham canned nine triples in the first half. The Rams were 15-28 from the floor while the Bonnies were 12-30. Fordham's 9-13 from deep compared to SBU's 2-5 provided the stark scoring difference.
Erin Rooney and Abigail Corning combined for 25 points in the first half alone. On the St. Bonaventure side, CeCe Dixon (9), Doris Ortega (8), Alaina Walker (6) and Katie Healy (4) were the only players in Brown and White to find the bottom of the bucket.
The second half was a completely different story for Fordham offensively and more importantly defensively for St. Bonaventure who needed to win to keep its hopes of a postseason appearance alive. Walker, hoping that this would not be her final road trip as a Bonnie, started the half with a made jumper. Erin Rooney followed Walker's jumper with a lay-in but Walker came right back and drew a foul. She made both free throws, and the comeback was on.
Ortega made a driving lay-in plus the foul with 16:56 to play. She would covert the free throw to put the Fordham lead into single digits. Almost three minutes later, it was Dixon with her third triple of the day, making it just a six-point Ram lead with 14:14 to go.
Following another solid defensive possession, Healy hit jumper, then Tatiana Wilson off of an outlet pass from Dixon handled the ball up three-quarters of the court then shook of the transition defender with a euro-step and finished the lay-in. The lead was down to two, 43-41 with 12:54 to play, timeout Fordham.
It was a script laid out by St. Bonaventure teams of the previous four-seasons and of the last two weeks, an ever-resilient bunch that found their way back into games. But the difference with the 2012-13 Bonnies has been that they hadn't quite figured out how to finish off the comeback just yet. They would have to here in order to extend their season beyond Sunday.
Fordham scored on their possession coming out of the timeout. Ashley Zahn made a great move to free herself in the lane on the other end for a jumper in the lane to answer however. Following a Fordham free throw, the Bonnies trailed 46-43 with 10:54 to go.
Ortega made a move in the lane to bring the lead down to one but Rooney would be fouled on the other end. She converted both free throws pushing the Rams' lead back to three, 48-45 with 8:15 to go.
The following possession Ortega brought ball up the court and isolated. When she went into her move the ball caromed off her foot and out of bounds. Emily Michael did not wait around for Fordham to bring the ball up the court however. She made a quick move with her hands and stole the ball and drove in for an open lay-up. The lead was back down to one, 48-47 with 7:38 left.
The Bonnies had kept the hot-shooting Rams that we saw in the first half at bay to this point, but not for much longer. Following a pair of made Fordham free throws and a stop, the Rams found Arielle Collins on the wing with the shot clock winding down. Collins canned the three for her first and only field goal of the game Katie Healy answered with a jumper of her own but a Marah Stickland triple on the ensuing Fordham possession seemed to take the wind out the sails of the Bonnies.
St. Bonaventure continued to battle for the remaining 3:34 but were unable to find the bottom of the basket on a field goal attempt or free throw for that matter as they only mustered one point the rest of the way as Fordham made its free throws down the stretch to secure the 62-50 victory.
The Bonnies battled as hard as they have all season but were unable to come up with that one big shot to take the lead midway through the second half.
In her final road game as a Bonnies Alaina Walker scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds while handing out two assists. Doris Ortega led the Bonnies with 13 points. CeCe Dixon scored 12 while freshman Katie Healy, who was opposite five-time Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week Sam Clark (2 pts, 8 reb, 5 fouls), scored eight points and pulled down 11 rebounds.
Fordham finished 11-23 from deep, the most triples the Bonnies have allowed this season. Abigail Corning finished with 15 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Erin Rooney scored 19 points before fouling out while Marah Stickland tossed in 16.
The Bonnies will conclude their season on Sunday in the Reilly Center against La Salle at 1:00 p.m. The game will also serve as Senior Day for Alaina Walker, Jordan McGee and manager Emily Costello.
GAME NOTES: Katie Healy became the first Bonnie of the season to record double-digit rebounds in back-to-back games. The Bonnies will not compete in the Atlantic 10 Tournament for the first time since the 2005-06 season. With the loss the Bonnies completed the first winless month of February in program history. It is also now just the third nine-game losing streak in program history.
