Sacred Heart to Face the Spiders - Game Notes
12/17/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 17, 2004
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GAME 8 Sacred Heart University (3-4, 1-0 NEC) vs. University of Richmond (6-0, 0-0 A-10)Saturday, December 18, 2004 2:00 pm EST Robins Center (9,071) Richmond, VA
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The Storyline... The Pioneer women's basketball team is back on the road Saturday afternoon as they travel to the University of Richmond in hopes of ending a three-game slide. SHU is also hoping to rebound from a rough offensive showing on Monday against Iona. The Pioneers shot just 30.2% (19-63) from the field and 15.8% (3-19) from three en route to a 64-54 loss. The offensive triple threat of Amanda Pape, Nicolle Rubino and Kerri Burke look to lead the upset minded Pioneers against the perfect 6-0 Spiders trying to avoid their first four-game losing streak in five years. Pape is currently fifth in the league in scoring at 15.0 points per game and seventh in rebound at 7.7 boards per contest including 26 offensive rebounds. Sacred Heart will return home after the holiday break to host Syracuse and Brown in the final two non-conference match-ups of the season.
Series... Today's game marks the first time the Pioneers and Spiders will meet on the hardwood.
Scouting the Spiders.... The University of Richmond Spiders are out to an impressive start to the 2004-05 season at a prefect 6-0. The Spiders are winning games by an average of 17.3 points and are coming off a 101-57 win over Howard on Wednesday night. Richmond is knocking on the door of cracking the ESPN/USA Today and Associated Press Top-25 Polls, receiving votes in both polls this week. The Spiders are led by their senior all-conference guard Kate Flavin, who is averaging 20.5 points per game on the year. She is shooting a whopping 64.3% (45-70) in her first six games while also averaging a team best 8.2 rebounds per outing. Also in double digits for Richmond is junior Saona Chapman who is scoring at 16.0 points per clip this season. She leads the team in three-point makes (16) and assists (38). Sophomore Christina Campion averages 13.0 points and 6.0 rebounds on the year while shooting 60.4% (32-53) from the field. As a team, the Spiders are shooting 50.0% from the field, hitting 171-of-343 in the season's first six games. Richmond was picked to finish first in the Atlantic-10 Conference's West Division. The Spiders are coming off a 23 win season a year ago where they advanced to the WNIT semi-finals.
The Coaches... Ed Swanson (SHU '89) enters his 15th season as head coach at his alma mater. Swanson posts a 215-180 record in his career at Sacred Heart. His teams have an 88-61 record since joining the Division I ranks in 1999-00. Swanson is the program's longest tenured coach and is the all-time leader in coaching wins, (215) and winning percentage (.544). He also earned his first ever NEC Brenda Reilly Coach of the Year award after guiding SHU to a school record 21 wins last season. Joanne Boyle (Duke `85) is in her third season at the helm of the Richmond women's basketball program. She has compiled a 50-21 record in her three years as the Spiders head coach.
Pioneers vs. the Atlantic-10... Sacred Heart is 1-3 all-time versus teams from the Atlantic-10 Conference. The Pioneers snapped a two game skid against the conference in last year's season opener when they beat the University of Massachusetts, 61-46. SHU fell at UMass in the 2002-03 season opener, 74-48. The Pioneers lost to La Salle University, 59-55, on December 30, 2000 and 69-66 to the University of Rhode Island on December 30, 1998.
Sacred Heart in the Northeast Conference... Sacred Heart became a member of the Northeast Conference during the 1999-00 season and since that time posted an 88-61 overall and 62-29 conference record. The Pioneers have qualified for the NEC Tournament each of their five seasons in the league and have never finished lower than third in the final league standings. SHU is coming off their most successful year in the conference, where they finished with 14 wins and the second seed in the tournament.
Streak at the Pitt Halted... The Pioneers carried the 7th longest home winning streak in the nation into last Saturday's game with Hofstra at 19-straight. The Pride halted any SHU hopes of 20 in a row with a bucket with just two seconds remaining to steal a 67-66 win and end a streak that dated back to the 2002-03 season. Their last regular season loss was to St. Francis (PA) in February of 2003 (66-63 OT). By losing to Iona on Monday night, Sacred Heart has now lost two straight at home for the first time since 1998-99. SHU is 54-14 at home since joining the NEC and 74-16 since the building opened in 1997. The Pitt Center currently ranks 11th in the nation as the toughest arena for opponents to earn a win.
Pioneers Logging Major Minutes... Four Pioneers have started this season averaging 30 minutes or more per contest. Sophomore Amanda Pape leads the team logging 37.4 minutes per game. She is followed by sophomore Kerri Burke at 35.3 minutes, junior Nicolle Rubino at 34.7 minutes and senior Colleen White at 29.6 minutes per game this year. Pape has played all 40 minutes in two-straight, against Hofstra and Iona.
Losing Streak... Sacred Heart enters today's game trying to snap a three-game losing streak. The Pioneers have never lost four-straight since joining the ranks of Division I in 1999-00. Their last four-game losing skid occurred during the 1998-99 season when they dropped games to Virginia Commonwealth, Dartmouth, Rhode Island and Harvard. The last time they lost five-straight was during the 1995-96 season when they ended the year with five consecutive losses.
Pape on the Boards... A 5-8 guard normally wouldn't be found in the top-10 in their league in rebounding, would they? Well, that's just what SHU's Amanda Pape is doing this season, pulling down 7.8 rebounds a game to rank 7th in the NEC. Pape has grabbed 54 boards on the year including 26 on the offensive end. The sophomore standout was second on the team last season with a 6.4 per game average.
