New Haven, CONN. - The Owls of Southern Connecticut State led for 34:40 of the 40 total minutes on Thursday evening in the James Moore Field House to earn a 62-51 Northeast-10 Conference victory over the visiting Le Moyne College women's basketball team.
 
"I think we had good looks, we just didn't finish," said Le Moyne Head Coach Mary Grimes after the game. "We talked about it before the game, (Southern Connecticut State) had the past six games where they played, then had a postponement, then played and had another postponement. This is the first week where they have played two games in a row, and we just talked about not letting them get into a rhythm, and I don't think we did that today. We defended as best as we could, I mean 62 points is- you know a lot of that was free throws at the end. We just gotta be better offensively," Grimes added.
 
Le Moyne redshirt-junior guard Saeeda Abdul-Aziz (Schenectady, N.Y./Mohonasen/Davidson) scored the first basket of the game, then the Owls went on a 10-0 run, holding Le Moyne scoreless for the next eight minutes. Senior forward Emma Brinker (East Aurora, N.Y./East Aurora) ended the drought with a layup at the 0:20 mark. 
 
Le Moyne shot 2-15 from the field during the opening quarter, and trailed 10-4 after the first ten minutes. 
 
With 7:11 left in the second quarter, the Owls held a 16-6 advantage. Le Moyne senior guard Erin Fouracre (Loudonville, N.Y./Colonie Central) drained a three-pointer at the 6:59 mark, then junior guard Lytoya Baker (Rochester, N.Y./Bishop Kearney) made a free-throw, and 30 seconds later finished a layup to cut the deficit to 16-12.
 
Southern Connecticut State first year guard Delaney Haines hit three-point field goals on back-to-back possessions to extend the Owls' lead back out to 10 points.
 
An Abdul-Aziz made three-pointer with 0:48 left in the half made it 25-19, but SCSU graduate guard Patricia Conroy responded with a three-pointer of her own 18 seconds later.
 
Fouracre scored a layup as the clock expired to put Le Moyne behind 28-21 at halftime. 
 
Owls graduate forward Jessica Fressle converted a three-point field goal and a layup at the beginning of the second half to give SCSU a 33-21 lead.
 
Baker scored all 12 Le Moyne third quarter points. The junior guard finished the contest with a game-high 21 points, along with eight rebounds in 34 minutes of action. In a game where every other Le Moyne player shot below 50%, Baker's scoring output on 9-12 shooting from the field kept the Dolphins within arms reach. Baker was able to move the defense by putting the ball on the floor and attacking the SCSU zone, finishing a handful of high-difficulty, heavily contested shots inside the painted area.
 
Fressle, who entered the game averaging a double-double of 16.3 points and 10.6 rebounds, had 10 third quarter points for the Owls, and finished the game with a team-high 17 points along with 10 rebounds. 
 
Conroy hit her second three-point field of the game during the third period, and Alexa Kellner hit a jumper with 0:53 left to give the Owls a 45-33 lead heading into the final quarter.
 
Jenna Zimmerman (Adams, N.Y./South Jefferson) drained a shot from behind the three-point line to start the fourth quarter, but Fressle responded immediately for the Owls with a three-pointer of her own.
 
Zimmerman was extremely active at the top of the zone for Le Moyne during her 36 minutes played tonight, making deflections and cutting down passing lanes with her long arms. The 6'2" forward finished the game with 10 points, on 4-9 from the field, eight rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots.
 
Junior guard Lexi Gruss (Binghamton, N.Y./Binghamton) was also highly disruptive on the defensive end for Le Moyne, coming away with a team-high three steals during 23 minutes of action.
 
Le Moyne fought extremely hard on the defensive end for all 40 minutes, but the Owls kept hitting timely shots. 
 
The Dolphins made their last run during the middle of the fourth quarter. At the 5:15 mark, Baker converted a layup, then Zimmerman drained her second three-point field goal of the quarter with 4:38 remaining, and Brinker made two free-throws with three minutes left to cut Southern Connecticut State's lead to 51-47.
 
On the next SCSU possession, senior guard Delaney Connors knocked down a three-pointer to extend her team's lead to 54-47.
 
The Owls went 8-8 from the line during the final 1:14 of the contest, and earned their fourth conference win of the season.
 
Southern Connecticut State deserves a lot of credit for the way they played tonight. Time and time again the Dolphins threw a punch trying to get back into the game and each time the Owls had a response. They were extremely physical inside with Brinker, and the referees allowed the two teams to play through contact.
 
The 'Phins did not lack the desire, focus or intensity needed to win tonight; everyone wearing green was engaged defensively, and working tirelessly to get the stops needed to climb back into the game. They just got beat tonight, by a team that played a great game, and made big shots when they needed to. 
 
The Dolphins will have to do a better job scoring the ball on the road going forward. For a team that has the ability to push the tempo and score the ball in transition with bigs that run the floor well and dynamic guards that are a nightmare to defend in the open court, Le Moyne's six fast break points tonight - compared to 22 for the Owls - was a disappointing statistic.
 
Following the loss, the Dolphins dropped to 12-4 overall, and 10-3 against conference competition.
 
The Le Moyne College women's basketball team does not have much time to rest before their next conference battle. The team will stay in Connecticut until their game against the University of New Haven on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. EST.
 
On the quick turnaround, Grimes had this to say: "I'm gonna rely on my seniors, they understand the magnitude of this conference, and the value of every single game, so they'll right the ship. You can't worry about what happened today. We can fix it, and then grow."