Iona upsets Siena, ends season for Saints
ALBANY, NY — The Siena College women’s basketball team saw their season come to a close Saturday, in a 67-47 loss to Iona, in the second round of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) women’s basketball tournament at Times Union Center.
The Saints (14-16) opened the game on a 5-0 run but trailed by three at the end of the first quarter. For a brief stretch, it looked like the team might mount a comeback as freshman guard Anna Lundquist nailed a three-pointer to tie the game at 16 just minutes into the second quarter. But foul trouble would haunt the Saints in the end.
“It really hurt us, “said Siena head coach Ali Jaques when asked about the team’s foul trouble. “That’s our front line … when you take them out of the mix, it becomes challenging for us.”
By the contest’s halfway point, Siena found themselves down 15, 35-22, a predicament coach Jaques didn’t want to be in. “My thought process was if we can hold them to under ten at half time, we’ed be okay. They stretched it to 13, and I thought we still had some fight in us.”
Iona pulled away for good in the third quarter, due in part to a pair of threes from sophomore guard Alexis Lewis which made it a 20 point game with two minutes remaining.
“She must have been mad at us for holding her to zero last time,” Jaques went on to say. ‘We didn’t locate her out of our matchup, but she got hot.”
For senior forward Meghan Donohue, the games outcome comes as more than just another loss, as it ends her decorated career with the program. “I didn’t think it was gonna be my last game. It’s been an honor to play here for four years. I made the best decision of my life four years ago to come here.”
The loss comes as Siena’s first in their first MAAC Tournament game since dropping a game to Fairfield in 2009.
No.5 Iona advances to face No.1 Quinnipiac in the semifinals, tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. It’s a rematch of last year’s championship game, which Iona captured before their men’s team did the same thing just a few hours later. The game can be streamed on ESPN 3 and tips off at the Times Union Center.
-Dylan Rossiter – @ByDylanRossiter – [email protected]–