ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Just one day after knocking off the 2021 NCAA Division II East Region Champions from Daemen, the Saint Anselm College women's basketball team took care of the runner-up in last season's regional, defeating Roberts Wesleyan by a 63-59 score in overtime on Saturday.
The Hawks jump out to a 2-0 record for the third consecutive season while Roberts Wesleyan evens its overall record at 1-1. Saint Anselm opens Northeast-10 Conference play on Wednesday, Nov. 17 as it takes on Bentley in a 5:30 p.m. contest in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium.
Senior Peyton Steinman (Pittsfield, Mass.) and sophomore Gabby Turco (Wildwood, N.J.) each scored 17 points, the former logging 11 made free throws and the latter tallying a team-best seven field goals, including three from beyond the arc. Steinman narrowly missed a double-double with nine rebounds and Turco logged three steals in the victory.
Junior Macy Spinks (Luton, England) scored six points and added four steals (career high), four rebounds and three assists and matched Turco for the team lead in minutes played with 43. Senior Stephanie Jankovic (Averill Park, N.Y.) had a career-high five rebounds in the win.
Neither team built a significant lead in the first quarter, but it was Saint Anselm that had to tie the game with a Liv Robles (Wallingford, Conn.) three-point basket in the final 20 seconds of play. In a slow developing first quarter, there were only three made baskets in the last four minutes of play.
With the score tied at 28 in the second quarter, it was another Hawks clutch basket that made a difference. With mere seconds left in the opening half, freshman Melanie Hoyt (Stamford, N.Y.) scored her only two points of the game on a go-ahead layup heading into the break. Roberts Wesleyan shot nearly 50% from the floor in the second quarter, but made five miscues that led to seven points off turnovers.
A late layup with one minute to go in the third quarter pushed Roberts Wesleyan ahead by a three-point margin, 44-41, but the teams battled back once again. The score was ultimately tied at 51 with 2:35 left in regulation time and after 2:13 scoreless minutes, Turco made a layup with 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
A shooting foul with three seconds left sent Taryn Wilson to the line where she made both, dramatically tying the game and forcing the game into overtime. She finished with 17 points, tying with Georgia Haverlock for the team lead in point scoring. Steinman had a team-best six points, all from the free throw line, in the fourth quarter alone.
Roberts Wesleyan controlled play for a large chunk of the overtime, but were unable to make shots on a consistent basis. To begin the overtime period, the Redhawks had four consecutive shots miss on the same possession – despite the solid rebounding effort for Roberts Wesleyan to begin the extra stanza, it was Steinman who scored the first points by either team, doing so on a layup with 3:30 to go.
From there, back-to-back free throws by Haverlock tied the game again with 2:28 to go. Saint Anselm immediately countered with a made field goal by Spinks with 2:14 left, giving the Hawks the lead for good. Steinman made all four of her free throws down the stretch, maintaining the Saint Anselm lead as time expired.
