BROOKLYN, N.Y. (February 14, 2015)—Hannah Kimmel (Harpursville, N.Y.) led the Pioneers with 17 points shooting .538 from the floor as the Sacred Heart women's basketball team suffered its largest loss of the season to the St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers 77-53 Saturday afternoon in the Pope Physical Education Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The loss drops SHU to 12-10 on the season and 7-5 against Northeast Conference opponents, while SFBK improves to 8-17 overall and 5-8 in conference play.
Kimmel and Adaysha Williams (LaCrosse, Wis.) combined for over half of SHU's scoring. The sophomore guard tallied 12 points hitting five of her 10 shots.
After exchanging the opening points of game, consecutive triples from Eilidh Simpson and Cassidy Derda gave the Terriers a 10-6 advantage; Kimmel accounted for all six of the Pioneers' early points.
After Kimmel added two more to SHU's total from the free throw line minimizing Sacred heart's deficit to one points, 14-13, Simpson snuck through the defenders to lay one in sparking an 8-2 streak for SFBK improving its lead to 22-15 at the 7:28 media timeout.
Williams and Lerae Ettienne (Kensington, Md.) combined for six points to bring the Pioneers within three of catching the Terriers, 25-22, with just over three minutes remaining in the half. After both teams were held scoreless for over a minute, St. Francis Brooklyn's Jaymee Veney put up four unanswered points improving the Terriers' lead to 29-22 with the clock winding down before she got called for a foul sending Williams to the line for two. The sophomore landed both sending SHU into halftime trailing 29-24.
St. Francis Brooklyn tallied the first five points of the second half before Kimmel's layup put SHU on the board in the latter half. It didn't do much to stop the Terrier offense, who answered with four straight points giving SFBK its largest lead of the game thus far of 13 points, 39-26.
Sacred Heart couldn't stop the Terriers three-point game as St. Francis Brooklyn knocked down 15 shots from beyond the arc. With just over five minutes to play, Sarah Benedetti, who led the game with 23 points, completed the rare four-point conversion before draining her sixth triple of the game to expand SFBK's lead to 68-45.
Sacred Heart continues the road trip when it heads to Mount St. Mary's Monday to face off against the Mountaineers at 7:00 p.m. Earlier this year, the Mount pushed SHU to overtime, but the Pioneers came out victorious 71-64.
