QUINCY, Mass. – The Endicott women's basketball team traveled to Eastern Nazarene on Saturday afternoon for a Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) contest. The match marks the second round of conference play for the Gulls as they soared over the Lions with a 71-55 final. Senior Samantha Crough (Cohasset, Mass.) led Endicott in scoring with 17 points and nine rebounds. The Gulls improve to 12-4, (7-2 CCC) while ENC falls to 5-10, (1-8 CCC).
The first half was a battle that ended in the Blue and Green's favor as they outscored the Lions 38-33 led by Crough with 10. In the opening minutes each side was going bucket for bucket until the 14:07 mark when ENC tallied nine unanswered points to take a 15-8 lead led by junior Ruby Leon (Fairfield, Calif.). Endicott ended the streak at 9:55 when junior Kayleen Whall (Foxboro, Mass.) worked hard in the paint to get the easy layup followed by a free throw to make it a three point play. Following in her stead sophomore Kelsey Cuddy (Madison, Conn.) drained a trey to get back within eight.
Senior playmaker, Sarah Robinson (Norwich, Vt.) made it a four point game after nailing a jumper from long range and senior Julie Manning (Hull, Mass.) gave the Gulls the lead at 7:56 after scoring five consecutive points to make it a 22-21 score.
With seven minutes remaining in the first half senior Abbie Tonello (Bourne, Mass.) tied the game back up at 23 apiece but Crough answered back with a pair of jumpers to start to pull away. After the points from Crough, Endicott went on to score nine more unanswered points to make it a 36-23 score with 3:58 left on the clock.
Eastern Nazarene took control for the final minutes by scoring 10 points and holding the Gulls to zero until the buzzer went off as Manning finished her play in the paint to get the two points to make it a five point game in Gulls favor entering halftime.
The second half was controlled by the Blue and Green as they outscored the Lions by 11 points while shooting 58.3% from close range and holding ENC to just 22.2%. The half started out strong for Endicott with strong efforts from Crough and Cuddy, but Leon would not go away quietly as she hit two jumpers in a row to get back within six. The Gulls came back with six unanswered points as they started to pull out of reach of ENC with 13:15 remaining in the game.
After a made free throw for the Lions, Endicott went on to take another scoring rally as they totaled 10 consecutive points in less than two minutes to make it a 20 point game with efforts from sophomore Caity Lowry (Quincy, Mass.) who came off the bench and scored seven points in just four minutes.
With less than six minutes remaining in the game the Lions attempted to get closer to the Gulls as they outscored Endicott 16-10 but it was not enough as the Blue and Green continued to finish strong and held the lead as they came out with the 71-55 victory.
Endicott worked hard offensively as they shot 50% from inside the arc while the bench came up big again scoring 26 points. Manning worked hard crashing the boards with six rebounds followed by nine points, while Cuddy came out with 12 points and five rebounds in addition to four steals.
Endicott will take the court next on Monday when they travel to Wentworth for a rescheduled CCC matchup due to the storm last week. The game is set to tip-off at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Nazarene will tip-off next on Wednesday the 29th as they travel to conference opponent University of New England for a 5:30 p.m. start time.
