By: St. John Fisher Athletics
PITTSFORD, NY – The St. John Fisher College women's basketball team closed out the 2019 calendar year on a high note with a 92-49 victory over the Medaille College Mavericks Monday evening at the Manning and Napier Varsity Gym.
Miranda Lynch scored a game-high 15 points as 14 different players scored for the Cardinals. Alyssa Ballou was productive off the bench as she racked up career-highs of nine points and nine rebounds for Fisher. With the win, Fisher improves to 7-2 while Medaille is still searching for its first victory of the season.
The Mavericks won the tip off and scored on the first possession to take an early lead. Fisher would respond on its first time with the ball as Ella Eckert set up Julia Mertsock for the layup. Just over a minute into the game, Amy Gardner would then hit a three to give the Cardinals the advantage at 5-2. Fisher would go onto to score eight more points in a row to push the lead up to 13-2.
The Cardinals would continue to keep the hot hand from outside with Lynch and Anna Milham sinking triples later in the quarter. With under 30 seconds remaining in the first, Gardner passed it up to Leah Koonmen who nailed a trey to make it 28-12.
After the Mavericks scored the first three points of the second quarter, the Cardinals answered with an 8-0 run to increase the lead to 21. Lynch hit one of her four 3-pointers of the game at about the halfway mark of the period that made it 39-17 in favor of the home team. Up by 26 later in the first half, Alex Reigle was able to take the ball away from Medaille and move it all the way to the other end for the bucket.
With just seconds left of the clock, Fisher got the ball into the hands of Eckert who nailed a half-court shot as time expired to give the Cardinals 57-23 lead at the break.
Harper Mead kept things going in Fisher's direction with a 3-pointer to open up the second half. The Cardinals cruised for the rest of the third quarter and into the fourth. Kylie Schlagenhauf hit a triple to give Fisher its largest lead of the night at 89-40. Balou was able to make four shots from charity stripe down in the final minutes to set a new career-high for points in a single game as the Cardinals won in dominating fashion at home.
92 points is the most points scored by the Cardinals in non-overtime game since 2016. They made the most field goals (34) and most 3-pointers (12) in a game this season while earning their best field-goal percentage in a game this season (.493). Fisher is off to its best start since the 2015-2016 campaign and remains undefeated at home this year.
The Cardinals won the rebound battle 46-30 with Mallory Wood gathering a game-high 10 for Fisher. Eckert was the team's second-highest scorer with 11 points in only 15 minutes played while Gardner recorded eight points along with a game-high eight assists.
Fisher now prepares to play at Middlebury College in Vermont on Thursday for a 4 p.m. tip off versus the Panthers. The Cardinals will return home to wrap up non-conference play against the Ithaca College Bombers on Monday, January 6
th with the start time slated for 6 p.m.