SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.— The Skidmore College women's basketball team lead from start to finish on the way to a 74-55 Liberty League win over Bard College, Saturday at the Williamson Center.
The defending Liberty League champions are now 6-3 overall and 1-0 in league play, while the Raptors drop to 5-5 and 0-1.
Kelly Donnelly led Skidmore with 15 points, six rebounds, three assists, four steals, and two blocks in only 17 minutes.
Caite Opfer and
Veronica Moceri scored eight each off the bench.
Maya Bell added six points and a team-high four assists.
Bianka Bell topped Bard in scoring with 22 points, while Tytravia Riley hit for 15 points and pulled down a game-high 21 rebounds.
Skidmore held Bard to 8-31 (25%) shooting from the floor in the first half on the way to a 38-22 lead. Donnelly scored 13 points and
Haley English had seven. The Thoroughbreds scored 17 points off 15 Raptor turnovers.
The Thoroughbreds were able to use the entire roster in the second half, with 42 of the team's 74 points coming from the bench. Skidmore converted 26 Bard turnovers into 30 points.
Skidmore will continue its League weekend at home Sunday at 2 p.m. against William Smith College.a
COACH BENNETT: We played a pretty good game coming off a long stretch of being off for finals and the holiday break. Our team came back to campus in pretty good shape, so this really helped our learning and growth continue as soon as we stepped back on campus to resume practices in preparation for Liberty League play.
Today everyone got in and had a chance to do something positive and that's a good thing to have happen in a conference game. Bard is not a deep team, but they definitely have some all conference level players in Bianka Bell and Tytravia Riley and today they played like it. We tried slowing those two down in particular and had trouble doing that. They are very good players. I think Bard is going to get some wins under their belt in conference play and they are definitely not a team to overlook.
I really like what some of our forwards are doing in particular with Migle and Taylor. Taylor doesn't get a lot of minutes, but when she gets in, she makes good things happen. Today in 20 minutes, she neared a double double and Migle is starting to carve out space inside and is finishing well around the basket. That kind of strong post play inside is going to open up the perimeter for our shooters and drivers going forward.
We hit some of our game goals and didn't do so well in some of our game goals, but overall I did like what we did in the end and it was good to see everyone get out on the floor for significant playing time. We played 13 players double digit minutes and got a chance to give our high minute players some rest for tomorrows game which is sure to be very fast paced and extremely aggressive on both ends of the floor.
Tonight we saw a little bit more of our depth and our ability to interchange line ups and go small or big and still be able to maintain our speed and aggressive pressing style of play. We still have some major growth to do in the quarter court defense, but we are getting there, we are definitely getting there.
We are looking forward to continuing our progress versus our next opponent in a strong William Smith team tomorrow.
