Moon Township, Pa. – Battling the top team in the Horizon League, the Robert Morris women's basketball team fell to Green Bay 61-37 on Friday night at the UPMC Events Center in conference play.
With the loss, the Colonials slip to 10-16 overall with a 4-13 mark in league action. Meanwhile, the Phoenix jump to 22-4 this season behind a 15-2 mark in Horizon League play.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Both squads struggled in the opening quarter as each team started the game two-for-five shooting from the floor and traded the opening 10 points. Jenna Guyer would convert a layup before sophomore
Phoenix Gedeon knocked down a jumper to knot the score at 7-7, with 5:04 remaining in the first quarter. The two teams would go over three minutes without a bucket before sophomore
Simone Morris buried a foul line jumper, 9-7. During that span, the Colonials held the top shooting team in the conference to 0-of-9 from the field and held a two-point advantage after one. Green Bay would respond in the second quarter by scoring 25 points and taking a 31-9 lead into the locker room.
In the second half, the two squads combined 0-for-10 to start the third quarter before Robert Morris scored six of the next 10 points, led by Morris and classmate
Rebecca Dwomoh. The Phoenix countered with a 6-2 bust of their own before the Colonials trimmed the deficit at the end of the third quarter, 46-23. The teams traded the opening 10 points of the fourth quarter before Gedeon and sophomore
Alejandra Mastral both converted jumpers to lead a 6-5 spurt.
QUOTABLE
"They run a lot of stuff, and they're very intelligent," RMU head coach
Charlie Buscaglia said. "Green Bay with how they run, they read the defense very well and pick apart when anyone gets lazy or loses focus. They got loose a lot in the second quarter and it was because of our inability to battle through the mental part of missing shots. Like I said, when they started hitting shots, we didn't handle it well mentally and our defense was breaking down. Just simple fundamental defensive stuff that we work on every day."
DYNAMIC DUO
For the fifth time this season, both
Phoenix Gedeon and
Simone Morris have scored in double-figures in the same game. It's the 12
th time Gedeon has paced the Colonials in scoring, finishing with 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the floor and grabbed eight rebounds. This was the fifth consecutive game she has scored in double digits. Morris has scored in double-figures eight times this season, finishing with 10 points on 4-of-8 from the field and corralled eight boards. The sophomore guard has collected eight or more boards four times this year.
QUOTABLE
"I'm just not a high and low person," Buscaglia continued. "I try to teach them consistency and whether we won today or lost today, I would've been after them the same way about the things that we need to do better. My value of being a coach is to teach them how to handle this adversity now and then continue to put bricks on our foundation. To know that we have a strong, consistent program that can bounce back from losses but also bounce back from wins."
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
Gedeon and Morris led the way for RMU as sophomore
Danielle Vuletich collected six rebounds, while chipping in five points and carding a block off the bench. Sophomore
Alejandra Mastral finished with four points, four rebounds, three assists and a block, while freshman
Louella Allana registered three assists and a steal in the loss.
UP NEXT
The Colonials close out their four-game homestand by celebrating Senior Day on Sunday, Feb. 19, when they host Milwaukee at 1:00 p.m. in Horizon League action.
Follow The Colonials: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | RMU Athletics Gameday App
