BOX SCORE
After trailing by as many as 10 in the final period,
Colleen Maloney brought the St. John Fisher College women's basketball team back to within four with her third 3-pointer of the game. The host Saxons rallied for a game-clinching run down the stretch, and defeated the Cardinals(10-5, 3-3 Empire 8) 68-57 on Friday night.
After a layup from
Mary Kate Comfort of Fisher'snext posession, Alfred responded with a time consuming 10-2 run to take control and held the Cardinals off for the rest of the game. Fisher trimmed the lead to five with under three minutes to play, but an 8-for-21 outing from the free throw line in the second half held the Cardinals back.
Maloney led the Cardinals in scoring for the second consecutive game with 18 points on an outstanding shooting night. The sophomore guard went 6-of-7 from the floor, including a perfect 3-for-3 performance from behind the arc. Comfort was the only other player to score in double figures for Fisher, recording 14 points. Alfred guard
Lyndsay Murphy, who spent her freshman season at Fisher, tallied a game-high 26 points.
The Cardinals built a meager five point lead over the initial 10 minutes of the first half, before junior center
Mary Kate Comfort pushed Fisher's lead to nine, the biggest of the half, with a pair of free throws and right handed jumper from the low block on back-to-back possessions at the 8:33 mark.
Maloney, who scored 13 points in the first half on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting effort from the floor, kept Fisher's lead at nine (29-20) with two free throws. Over the remaining 3:49 though, the Cardinals managed just one point and turned the ball over four times as the Saxons ended the half on a 19-8 run. The push gave Alfred a 32-30 lead at the break.
Alfred continued to control the action to open the second half, holding a nine-point lead (41-32) following a run in the first three minutes.
Fisher will take on Nazareth College at 2 p.m. tomorrow.
