Kara Charette with team-high 16 points in the win
RINDGE, N.H. (January 11, 2014) – Four Ravens scored
in double-figures and the Franklin Pierce University women's
basketball team rode a hot-shooting second half in pulling away for
a 78-53 win over Saint Rose on Saturday afternoon at The Fieldhouse
in Rindge.
The Ravens pushed their winning
streak to a season-high four games in improving to 8-6 overall and
5-4 in the Northeast-10, while the Golden Knights dropped their
third straight to fall to 8-7 and 3-6 in league play.
Sophomore forward Kara
Charette (Fairhaven, Mass.) paced the four double-figure
scorers with 16 points on 4-of-8 shooting. Senior guards
Brooke Coderre (Woonsocket, R.I.) and
Brittany Martelle (Brookfield, Conn.) each rained
in a trio of three-pointers and scored 15 and 13 points,
respectively. Junior forward Jessica Hurd (Kegworth,
England) came off the bench to register a double-double of
11 points and 11 rebounds.
Jamie Hutcheson led Saint Rose with
15 points, while Staci Barrett had 14 in a reserve role.
Franklin Pierce shot 49 percent
from the floor for the game, but was even more impressive in the
second half by connecting at a 68 percent clip in opening up a
narrow margin into a comfortable 25-point victory.
The Ravens were even hotter
shooting from three-point range in the second stanza by going
5-of-6 for 83 percent.
Franklin Pierce held a solid, but
not comfortable 12-point lead coming out of the locker room at
halftime, but the Ravens quickly made things more comfortable with
a mix of inside and outside baskets to open up a 52-32 lead with 12
minutes to go.
Martelle knocked down a pair of
triples during the opening surge, while Coderre and Ashley
Forand (Storrs, Conn.) threw in a deep bomb as well. Hurd
and Caitlin Hopkins (Holtsville, N.Y.) tossed in a
layup each, and things were in the Ravens favor.
The Ravens never let the Golden
Knights threaten after that and kept their lead around the 20-point
range the rest of the way.
Coderre was 3-of-3 from the field
in the second 20 minutes, while Hurd was 2-of-3 and Martelle was
3-of-5.
Franklin Pierce played well at both
ends of the floor, and defensively, limited Saint Rose to just 26
percent shooting for the game, including a 14 percent clip
(3-of-22) from three-point land.
The opening stages of the game saw
neither side put it together consistently, as the Ravens scored the
first nine points, followed by the Golden Knights scoring the next
nine, and finally Franklin Pierce responding with 11-consecutive
points.
The Golden Knights trimmed the
deficit to six with just a few minutes remaining in the half, but
Charette tossed in back-to-back layups and Hurd made one of her own
to cap the stanza to give the Ravens a 30-18 lead at the
intermission.
Charette had eight points in the
first half, while Hurd added seven.
Franklin Pierce returns to action
next Saturday when the Ravens travel to face New Haven at 3:30 p.m.
in West Haven, Conn.
For more information on Franklin
Pierce women's basketball, please visit the team's page
at http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu. To follow
the program even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on
YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports),
Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics)
and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens).
Fans wishing to purchase Franklin Pierce women's basketball
apparel can do so on the athletic department's online store
at http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu/store(.)