Women's Basketball | 2/8/2022 7:28:00 PM
ONEONTA, NY - The Hartwick Women's Basketball team is back into the postseason after their convincing 89-70 win over Utica at home on Tuesday evening. This is the team's third consecutive trip to the Empire 8 Championships, not counting the 2020-21 season that Hartwick did not play due to covid. The Hawks improved to 14-6 (9-3) while Utica fell to 18-3 (9-3).
Isabella Astorino blocked a layup 30 seconds into the game, allowing Hartwick to jump on the board first after Molly Kirby drained a long distance shot. Giuliana Pritchard came up with a block of her own on the visitor's next possession, but a Hartwick turnover allowed the Pioneers to get on the board. The teams traded baskets a few times until Utica went up halfway through the opening quarter. The Pioneers held a lead for 2 straight minutes until Molly Kirby hit another 3 to bring Hartwick ahead 1. The lead was short lived though, as Utica took the next 4 points and appeared poised to head into the second with a lead, but Maggie Kirby had other plans as she sunk a long range shot to tie the game at 18 as time expired.
The second was shaping up to be much like the first, with both team's trading baskets and building small leads before watching them vanish. Down 32-29 at the 3:35 mark, Hartwick went on an impressive run that truly broke the game open in favor of the Hawks. Defensively, Hartwick allowed just a single point the rest of the way, while offensively breaking out for 19 points in that short span to take a large 48-33 lead into the locker room.
The recipe that Hartwick used to build the lead was what they dialed up in the third, as they never appeared in danger of relinquishing the lead and instead built it up to as much as 23 on multiple occasions. For the third consecutive quarter, Hartwick reached the 50% shooting mark, hitting 9-18 in the third en-route to outscoring Utica 26-18 and taking a commanding 23 point lead into the final 10 minutes.
Hartwick pushed their lead to 27 over the first 4 minutes of the final quarter, but then went cold from the field. Looking more and more likely they would break the century mark having already scored 85 points with more than 6.30 to play, Hartwick was held scoreless for 4 minutes and managed just 4 points the rest of the game, coming off jumpers by Kayley Ericson just 40 seconds apart. But the lead was large enough as Utica was unable to take advantage of the 31% Hartwick shooting from the field.
Maggie Kirby led the way again, with her second consecutive game scoring 22 points; this time needing just 31 minutes to do so. Molly Kirby added 17 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists for a well-rounded effort. Giuliana Pritchard and Mikyla Mitchell added 13 each while Isabella Astorino, Daniella DeBiase, and Bree Fargnoli pitched in 6 apiece. Pritchard pulled down a team high 10 rebounds as she recorded her third double-double of the season, and second in as many games.
Hartwick wraps up their home regular season schedule later this week, with Friday's 5:30pm game against Alfred and Saturday's 2pm game with Houghton.