Women’s basketball: Bonnies have strong showing in exhibition victory

By Katie Faulkner @kfaulkner20

The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team made an impressive debut as they rolled past Edinboro in a 79-37 victory at the Reilly Center Saturday afternoon.

The Bonnies broke out to an early 14-5 lead and continued to gain momentum on a 17-2 run that lasted into the second quarter.

Senior Nyla Rueter and sophomore Miranda Drummond led the way with 16 points apiece. Rueter got things rolling early when she connected on her first three shots from long range. Redshirt junior Gabby Richmond tallied a game-high 12 rebounds, grabbing eight in the first quarter.

The Bonnies recorded 19 assists on the night compared to Edinboro’s five. Graduate student Emily Michael dished out seven of them, six coming in the first half of action.

“I was very pleased with how we shared the basketball,” said coach Jim Crowley. “I thought we did a very good job there.”

St. Bonaventure took a comfortable 41-12 advantage heading into halftime, allowing them to work all 12 players into the rotation.

Overall, the Bonnies shot over 49 percent (31-of-63) from the floor and connected on seven three-point makes. They held Edinboro to just 22.2 percent shooting and also forced 16 turnovers.

“I thought our ball pressure was really good for the most part,” Crowley said.

Freshman guard Mckenna Maycock came out confident and posted 13 points on six-of-eight shooting in 19 minutes of play.

“(Maycock) went really hard and was able to get things to the rim, which we think she’ll be able to get throughout the year,” said Crowley.

This matchup might have been a practice with uniforms and an audience, but holding any team to just 37 points on 12-of-54 shooting can’t be overlooked. Senior forward Katie Healy acknowledged that their real test will be on the defensive end this year.

“We’re not so much worried about offense. We need to make sure we shut teams down and this was a good start to it.”