The Pioneer Trail: Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015
Women's Basketball at Molloy – 5 p.m.
Five games remain on the regular season schedule for the LIU Post women's basketball team. With three of those contests against teams that are currently ahead of them in the East Coast Conference standings, every outing is critical to boost playoff positioning. For the Pioneers, tonight's game against Molloy serves as a chance to keep pace with those squads above them and also take a step towards hosting a play-in contest.
LIU Post (14-9, 10-5 ECC) dropped a difficult 77-69 decision to Saint Thomas Aquinas on Saturday (Feb. 14) at Aquinas Hall in Sparkill, N.Y. The Pioneers never led in the contest and trailed by as many as 20 points, with the Spartans leading 45-28 at the halftime break. A 23-5 run to open the contest doomed the green and gold to the loss, though they battled back in the second half to make the score closer than the game would indicate.
Red-shirt senior Jessica Little (Wyandanch, N.Y.) led LIU Post with 15 points and four three-pointers, also pulling down seven rebounds. Senior guard Chelsea Williams (Copiague, N.Y.) added 13 points, but went 4-for-17 from the field in the contest. Additionally, junior center Nyasia Davis (Rahway, N.J.) chipped in 11 points and nine boards.
The loss dropped LIU Post one full game behind NYIT, Queens (N.Y.) and Roberts Wesleyan for second place in the conference. With the win, Saint Thomas Aquinas moved to 7-9 in ECC play and currently holds sole possession of the sixth and final playoff spot.
Molloy (10-12, 6-9 ECC) is lurking behind the Spartans by just one half-game. The Lions lost to conference leader UDC on Saturday (Feb. 14) by a score of 79-61. The Firebirds opened the game on a 26-9 run and led Molloy at the halftime break by a 40-20 advantage. In fact, UDC would lead wire-to-wire and held as much as a 28-point edge over their opponents in the contest. Molloy only shot 25% (6-24) from the field in the first half and missed on all nine of their three-point attempts within the first 20 minutes of play.
Junior forward Ally Leftridge (Melville, N.Y.) played her best game in a Molloy uniform with 21 points and five offensive rebounds. Leftridge shot 50% from the floor (6-12) and from three-point range (2-4), while hitting seven free throws in ten attempts. Senior forward Nicole Arnone (Staten Island, N.Y.) and sophomore guard Maggie Salomone (Narragansett, R.I.) added 10 points each for the Lions in the contest.
The two squads last met on Jan. 14 in Brookville, and LIU Post eked out a 65-60 victory over Molloy on that occasion. Senior guard Ashley Castle (Brooklyn, N.Y.) had a game-high 24 points and junior forward Kalinka DeRoche (New Haven, Conn.) grabbed 12 rebounds in the win.
Men's Basketball at Molloy – 7:30 p.m.
The LIU Post men's basketball team knows the score. With five contests to play in the regular season, the Pioneers hold the sixth-place spot in the ECC standings by two games over Roberts Wesleyan and Queens (N.Y.). With contests against those two schools, NYIT and Daemen still left to play, the green and gold cannot take a game off if they want to play March basketball. Tonight the team faces a Molloy squad that doled out the harshest punishment possible, a buzzer-beating win at the Pratt Recreation Center last month.
LIU Post (12-11, 7-8 ECC) was defeated by Saint Thomas Aquinas on Saturday (Feb. 14) by a 68-64 score. The Pioneers beat themselves in the contest, as poor free-throw shooting (7-18, 39%) doomed the green and gold to the loss. The team actually held a 60-57 lead with just over five-and-a-half minutes to play, but hit just two of their next six shots in that critical stretch.
Senior forward Tyuan Williams (Newark, N.J.) and sophomore forward Greg Dotson (Abington, Pa.) each scored 15 points for the Pioneers, while Dillon Burns added 14 in the effort. LIU Post outrebounded their opponents by a 38-35 margin, but the Pioneers committed 19 turnovers while the Spartans committed just 15.
Molloy (13-10, 8-7 ECC) kept pace for the No. 3 seed in the conference with an 86-80 victory at UDC on Saturday (Feb. 14). Junior guard Brandon Williams (Baldwin, N.Y.) led the Lions with 19 points and was an unblemished 11-for-11 from the free-throw line in the win. As a team, Molloy shot 91% (20-22) from the charity stripe in the game. Unsurprisingly, the team leads the conference with a 79% foul-shot percentage.
Sophomore forward Charlie Marquardt (Rockaway Beach, N.Y.) hit five three-pointers on his way to 18 points in the contest. Meanwhile, senior guard Matt McLeod (Greenlawn, N.Y.) scored 13 points and pulled down a team-high eight rebounds.
In the conference standings, Molloy is tied with NYIT at 8-and-7 with LIU Post a full game back of those two squads. Sandwiched between the two teams is Dowling, which currently holds an 8-and-8 record and the fifth-place position in the ECC playoff race.
Molloy currently holds the lead in the season series, as the Lions defeated LIU Post 61-59 in Brookville back on Jan. 14. A driving lay-up by sophomore guard Jaylen Morris (Amherst, N.Y.) with four-tenths of a second on the clock provided the difference in the contest.