Lady Bears Stumble Against USCAA Rivals Briarcliffe

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – In a matchup featuring two ranked United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) teams, No. 17 Briarcliffe College used a 19-1 first-half run to hand No. 15 St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) an 84-66 setback on Wednesday night at Brooklyn Technical High School.

With St. Joseph's (6-8) leading 17-16 at the 7:56 mark of the first half, the Lady Bears went without a field goal for over seven minutes and Briarcliffe (5-3) opened a 35-18 advantage and never looked back, capturing the third straight meeting between the two New York USCAA rivals.

The Lady Bears were paced by 19 points from senior Teresa Mangan (Cleveland, OH/St. Joseph's) also grabbing five boards and dishing out four assists.  Junior Megan Moran (Syosset, NY/St. Dominic's) posted a career-high 18 points – all coming in the second half – on 7-of-10 shooting to go along with seven rebounds.

Junior Samantha Retas (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Kearney) fell one point shy of her ninth double-double of the season finishing with nine points and a team-high 17 rebounds. Senior Janine Doran (South Ozone Park, NY/Archbishop Molloy) dished out a career-high-tying and game-high eight assists, netting seven points and six caroms.

Briarcliffe produced a balanced offense that placed five Lady Bulldogs in double figures led by freshman Andrea Desvignes' 19 points. Simmone Thomas had 16 points and 12 rebounds and Jessica Little tallied 11 points and 13 rebounds to contribute double-doubles to the victory.

Neither team led by more than five points early in the opening frame and the Bulldogs broke open a one-point game with their 19-1 spurt in just over five minutes that sent them into the lockers up 37-22. Both teams shot under 30 percent in the opening half, but Briarcliffe took advantage of 14 Lady Bears' miscues and a 16-6 edge in second-chance scoring.

Both squads improved their shooting in the second stanza and the Bulldogs utilized a 49 percent connect rate to balloon their lead to as many as 26 points just five minutes into the frame.

With Briarcliffe still leading by over 20 points, the Lady Bears resorted to defensive pressure that started to force turnovers and Moran scored 14 points during a five-minute, 18-9 burst to get St. Joseph's back into the game.

A few minutes later a Moran layup with 5:39 to play off a Taylor Raccuglia (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Kearney) feed brought the deficit back to single digits, 69-60, but the Bulldogs squashed any hopes of a comeback scoring the next eight points and the lead remained out of danger until the final buzzer.

St. Joseph's returns to action on Saturday, January 12 hosting another USCAA rival, No. 10 Apprentice School, in the nightcap of a twinbill with the men. The Bears open HVMAC play against Culinary Institute at 5 p.m. with the Lady Bears scheduled to tip against the Lady Builders at 7:30 p.m.  Live stats and video will be available for both games with Sitesh Shah calling the action on SJCBears.com.