By Brittany Burke
Coming off a disappointing loss to NEC rival Monmouth, the CCSU women’s basketball team (8-12, 5-5) entered Saturday afternoon’s home game rejuvenated, cementing their win over the Fairleigh Dickinson University (6-15, 28) early on in the second half topping the Knights 79-61.
CCSU came together and played as one to get the win, whereas the offense on Thursday was seemingly lopsided.
“A lot of that was really nice passing. Twenty-six assists, 16 turnovers, that’s like unheard of. You just don’t see that happen too often, and we just made some great passes, and it’s just open,” said Head Coach Beryl Piper. “Kerrianne [Dugan] had 11 assists, that’s like a [Rajon] Rondo stat from the Celtics, that’s just awesome, and PJ [Wade] had six assists. When the kids step up and play together it makes all the difference in the world.”
Even though the whole team played well two players emerged as the night’s stars, juniors Leanne Crockett and Kerrianne Dugan.
Crockett was nearly perfect on her way to a career high 26 points. She went 9-9 in field goals and 4-4 in threes with the only glitch in perfection coming from a missed free throw attempt midway through the first half. Crockett remained poised and calm as she made each of her threes look easy.
While Crockett was breaking her personal best, Dugan was simultaneously breaking a school record. Dugan finished the game with 19 points and 11 assists, becoming the first player since Paige Martin in 1994 to have a double-double in points and assists.
Dugan was 100 percent in her four free throws and shot 7-16 on her way to the 19 points.
Towards the end of the second half Dugan had her sights set on another record, the first player in CCSU Division I Women’s Basketball history to get a triple-double. As the clock was winding down it became evident that Dugan may be able to attain 10 rebounds, giving her the triple-double. Unfortunately the buzzer rang through Detrick Gymnasium before she got the chance, coming up just one rebound shy of making CCSU Division I history, but that small set back does not take away from her other broken record.
Dugan, who proclaimed to be in a bit of a slump in the games prior to Monmouth, was the only player to reach double digits in that defeat, and she allowed for that momentum to carry through against the Knights.
On the other hand, she was one of three players to reach double digits against FDU, which also included Crockett and Justina Udenze who ended the game with 12 points of her own.
Getting more people open to score double digits was something Dugan said CCSU needed to do against Monmouth to win, and the defeat of FDU proved her to be correct.
“When you have a couple of people scoring double digits, everybody getting a lot of rebounds that really helps everyone,” Dugan said.
The first half of the game remained close with the lead changing 14 times, but the Blue Devils were able to go into half time with the four point advantage after Crockett sunk two with under three seconds left to play.
CCSU sealed the win early on in the second half with three consecutive threes made by PJ Wade, Crockett and Alexzandria Dowdy.
“Sometimes our team gets stuck just standing and watching after we make a pass, but I think today everybody was moving, cutting, getting themselves open and we found the people, and shooting open shots is better. But yea the three threes were a big boost coming out in the second half. Usually we struggle in the first four minutes of the second half but we did pretty good today,” said Crockett.
CCSU remains in the middle of the NEC rankings while on their quest for a good bid entering tournament time, making each game they play a must win.
“We want to try to win the rest of our games to get us a good seed. We don’t want to be a number eight seed to have the toughest game,” Dugan said.
CCSU faces Bryant back to back, with their next home game occurring Sat. Feb. 6 at 1 p.m.
