And with the New York Collegiate Athletic Conference season winding down and…
By Dylan Butler
They didn’t play their best basketball. But when it counted, the Queens College Lady Knights stepped it up in a 56-43 win over Molloy College Saturday at Fitzgerald Gymnasium.
And with the New York Collegiate Athletic Conference season winding down and the Lady Knights so close to hosting a first round playoff game, that was all that mattered.
“This guarantees us a winning season,” said Queens head coach Jerry Ingenito. “We’ve made great strides. We just want to keep playing.”
Despite a lackluster first half, Queens (13-10, 11-6) made a giant step towards its goal of hosting a first round playoff game with the victory over Molloy, its eight in its last 10 games.
And the Lady Knights used what has become their trademark to defeat the Lady Lions — a tough, in-your-face, man-to-man defense. For the ninth time in 10 games, Queens held an opponent to less than 30 percent shooting, as Molloy (7-16, 6-11) shot just 23.7 percent for the game.
The Lady Knights lead the country in field goal defense and is 10th in points allowed.
“We’re not the highest scoring team in the conference, so everything we do comes from our defense,” said freshman guard Erin Dollard, who had 13 points. “We just stepped it up a bit and we pressured the ball.”
And it was that stellar defense that keyed a critical 13-1 second-half run as the Lady Knights erased a 29-28 deficit to take a 41-30 lead capped by an April Gross (14 points, 11 rebounds) putback with 8:07 left in the game. Queens shut out Molloy from the field during the 7:17 run.
“We just stepped it up on defense,” said Gross. “We started talking more on the defensive end.”
The Lady Lions came back to cut the Queens lead to 41-34 on Valeyn Daniels’ hook shot in the paint, but Dollard — who has struggled with her shot — delivered the crushing blow moments later, nailing her second three-pointer of the game from the top of the key to increase the Lady Knights lead back to 10, 44-34 with 4:04 left.
“I credit the girls inside with that one,” said Dollard, who went 3-for-4 from the foul line in the final 50 seconds to ice the win. “They pull the defense in. The least I can do is knock it down.”
Added Ingenito, “In the second half we were more active, more aggressive. We made the hustle plays and that got us going.”
Theresa Dollard added nine points and seven rebounds for Queens, which head to division leading Philadelphia University in a game scheduled for Wednesday before playing at St. Thomas Aquinas Saturday at 6 p.m.. Elena Rakova also had nine points and 10 rebounds as Queens outrebounded Molloy, 49-42.
Mary Harrison had 10 points and 10 boards, Michelle Martini had eight points and St. Francis Prep grad and Bellerose native Liz Fryer had seven first-half points for Molloy.
<b>Adelphi 73, Queens 61.</b> Rakova scored a career-high 30 points and Gross added 15 points on 6-for-6 from the field as the Lady Knights dropped its second straight game last Wednesday at Adelphi.
Reach Associate Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 143.
