Syracuse, N.Y. - The Mary Grimes era at Le Moyne College got off to an auspicious start on Wednesday evening at Ted Grant Court, as the women's basketball team earned their first victory of the season, a convincing 82-48 win over the visiting East Stroudsburg University Warriors to improve the team's record, as well as Grimes' career head coaching record, to 1-0. 

In the first quarter the Dolphins jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead via a three-point field goal from Saeeda Abdul-Aziz (Schenectady, N.Y./Mohonasen/Davidson), a mid-range jumper by Lytoya Baker (Rochester, N.Y./Bishop Kearney) and two made free throws from senior Emma Brinker (East Aurora, N.Y./East Aurora). 

Le Moyne forced 11 first quarter Warriors turnovers to establish a 24-6 lead at the end of the first 10 minutes. 

With 7:21 left in the second quarter Brinker put back a Baker miss to put the Dolphins up 27-6. 

Senior point guard Erin Fouracre (Loudonville, N.Y./Colonie Central) dished an assist to Brinker at the 5:25 mark of the second quarter, then stole the ball in the Warriors backcourt and finished a layup to put her team up 31-11. Fourace finished the game with three steals and three assists.

With 4:02 left in the first half, Brinker grabbed another offensive rebound - one of 10 that she pulled down throughout the game - and converted a layup off a Jenna Zimmerman (Adams, N.Y./South Jefferson) miss, and scored off an assist from Abdul-Aziz with 2:40 remaining in the second quarter to put the Dolphins up 37-14. Brinker finished the contest with a game-high 26 points to go along with 11 total rebounds. 

"I think the bigs did a really good job sealing, getting open, rebounding. We knew coming in that they were a smaller team and we have some bigger post players, so we knew we could dominate. I think we did a really good job getting on the boards, both offensively and defensively, and sharing the ball, passing to each other and noticing who was open," said Brinker after the game. 

Zimmerman drew a foul with one second remaining in the second quarter and converted one of two free throws to put Le Moyne up 45-22 at halftime. 

The Warriors showed some fight coming out of the locker room, cutting the deficit to 17 following a three-point field goal from Rachel Capua at the 6:58 mark of the third quarter. Brinker then scored six straight points to disrupt East Stroudsburg's momentum, and then Abdul-Aziz got going to help the Dolphins cruise to the finish line. 

Abdul-Aziz caught fire during the back-end of the third quarter. The redshirt-junior knocked down three straight three-point field goals between the 4:20 and 2:46 mark of the third quarter to extend the Le Moyne lead to 30 points, and was happy to be back on the court energizing the crowd with her sharpshooting.

"It felt amazing. My first half wasn't great, but I knew if I kept shooting they would eventually fall. I'm a good shooter, my coach believes in me, my teammates believe in me, and it shows - they kept getting me the ball, I'm knocking them down. I can only thank them," Abdul-Aziz said after the game. In her first game wearing the Green & Gold, she finished with an impressive stat line of 21 points and 11 rebounds while shooting 50% from three-point land.

East Stroudsburg refused to throw in the towel, going on an 8-0 run to close the third quarter, trimming their deficit to 22 points before entering into the final 10 minutes.

The Warriors scored five straight to start the fourth quarter and cut the Le Moyne lead back to 17. 

Baker responded for Le Moyne by attacking the defense, drawing a foul and knocking down two free-throws with 8:34 left, then getting into the paint and converting a layup with just over eight minutes left in the game. Zimmerman then got in on the action, converting an old-fashioned three-point play with 7:46 left in the 4th quarter to put the Dolphins up 69-45. Baker pulled down eight rebounds and scored 11 points throughout the contest, while Zimmerman finished the non-conference matchup with six points and tied her single-game career high rebounding total with 16 boards. 

The Warriors did not have another run in them, and Le Moyne earned their first win of the season by a final score of 82-48. 

Post-game quotes from Head Coach Mary Grimes:

"It was overall a great team effort, I think everybody came in and they contributed, whether it was a hustle play, a rebound, it didn't necessarily have to be scoring, but everybody played hard and that's what we talked about right from the start is we gotta be the aggressor and I think we did that right from the jump."

How the full court pressure helped the team:
"I think it just energizes us, we took it off for a little bit and we got into a bit of a lull, so I was like, 'alright let's get back up, if you guys wanna play this hard and get after it a little bit'. It gives us a lot of energy whether we're trapping or not, it speeds the game up."

On turnovers:
"We had 20 turnovers, but I think some of them were just careless, mental mistakes. For them to have 22 turnovers, it just shows that our press was working and we were being the aggressive team."

On the team's 15 steals and out-rebounding the Warriors 58-27:
"24 offensive rebounds, that's just impressive. I wish we would've finished a couple more of those during the first five minutes of the second half. We were getting on the boards, we just weren't finishing, just having some mental lapses there. I mean 58 rebounds, I couldn't be any prouder of this team."

On substitution pattern to keep momentum and high-energy for all 40 minutes:
"That's a credit to (Assistant Coach Joanna Dobrovosky '18) on the bench, just saying 'so and so is tired,' she's paying attention to the game really well and everyone just came in and contributed. It was great to see them execute what we talked about."

On earning her first career win as a head coach at Le Moyne:
"It's definitely a monkey off my back for sure, and I'm just excited. I'm going to enjoy this one tonight and then move on to the next one tomorrow."

The Le Moyne College women's basketball team will host University of New Haven for their first NE10 Conference game of the season on Saturday, November 20 at 1:00 p.m. EST, the first game of a basketball double header at Ted Grant Court.