Despite trailing by as many as 16 points, Marist women’s basketball pulled off a stirring come-from-behind victory over Niagara, winning 61-60 in the game’s final moments.
Facing former Marist assistant coach Jada Pierce and her Niagara squad (6-10, 3-3 MAAC), which was the preseason favorite to win the MAAC conference, the Red Foxes (4-11, 2-3 MAAC) gutted out a momentum-establishing win. After committing a whopping 21 turnovers in the first half, the Red Foxes only turned the ball over eight times the rest of the way while fighting back from a deficit. Senior forward Zaria Shazer led the comeback effort with a game-high 20 points and senior point guard Kiara Fisher contributed another solid all-around effort with 14 points, six rebounds, and six assists.
“Obviously with the way Niagara plays, it can be a punch in the gut at certain parts of the game, but we talked about how they can grow a big lead really fast and they can give up a big lead really fast,” said Marist head coach Erin Doughty during the ESPN postgame interview. “We wanted to continue to fight, to continue to dig down and not lose our confidence when we had turnovers.”
Despite exiting the previous game with a back injury, junior guard Catie Cunningham returned to the starting lineup and played through the injury while earning 11 hard-fought rebounds and making the game-winning free throw after drawing a pivotal foul. Her presence boosted the Marist defense, as she was tasked with slowing down MAAC Preseason Player of the Year Aaliyah Parker and succeeded, holding her to only six points.
“That was a huge team win, we all stuck together, we didn’t get down on each other, and that was a big thing because we needed to get over that hump and that’s what we’ve been doing over the past two games,” said Cunningham during the ESPN postgame interview.
In the first minute of play, Niagara graduate student guard Angel Parker stole the rock from sophomore center Morgan Lee and went coast-to-coast, scoring the first points of the game. Right away, Lee made up for it, with Fisher sending a successful feed to her inside. Fisher continued attacking the paint, assisting Shazer inside for a layup of her own.
Angel Parker, playing in just her seventh game after suffering a preseason injury, made another steal and went the other way for the score to tie the score at four. After a few more buckets, sloppiness ensued during the middle of the first quarter, with missed shots and turnovers plaguing each team.
With the score stuck at 6-6, Angel Parker finally ended the offensive drought for both teams around the 3-minute mark of the first quarter by making her third tenacious steal of the game and burying a midrange shot. Niagara then went on an 8-0 run to give themselves a 19-9 lead, with graduate student guard Destiny Strother capping off the run with a 3-ball from the left wing.
Marist tried to close the gap, with a pair of Lee layups and a layup from Fisher making it a 21-15 game early in the second quarter. Lee then made a key block on Hicks in the restricted area, but Shrother, who came into the game shooting 36% from deep on the year, made a corner three to give Niagara a nine-point lead. Aaliyah Parker pushed the lead to double digits on the next possession, stripping the ball from freshman guard Julia Corsentino and scoring on the other end.
Coming out of a timeout, Corsentino had the ball stolen from her again, as this time Hicks earned the possession and made the basket on the other end. Yet another Strother 3-pointer, this time from the right wing, gave Niagara a commanding 31-15 lead midway through the second quarter.
Despite trailing by a substantial margin, the Red Foxes began to fight back before halftime, going on an 11-0 run fueled by Fisher’s playmaking. After exchanging a few free throws in the final moments of the half, Marist trailed 37-27 at the break. Even though Marist outshot Niagara 43% to 32% in the first two quarters, 21 turnovers doomed the Red Foxes, compared to just seven for the Purple Eagles.
Back-and-fourth scoring kept the Marist deficit at 10 for the first five minutes of the third quarter, but eventually, Marist’s standout veteran players began to chip away at the lead. A strong layup and a free throw from Shazer, three Fisher free throws, and a Cunningham layup put Marist on an 8-2 run. With Niagara missing a host of shots, the score tightened to 45-41 at the end of the third quarter.
With a strong start to the fourth quarter, Niagara reestablished a 52-43 lead with under seven minutes remaining. The Marist comeback effort began to materialize with just over six minutes left, with sophomore forward Ciara Croker feeding Shazer inside and sophomore guard Jackie Piddock following it up with an exuberant corner three. Shazer continued to fuel the comeback effort by making a pair of free throws along with a tough shot inside after corralling her own rebound. With four minutes remaining, the Niagara lead had shrunk to 54-52.
Marist tied things up thirty seconds later, with Piddock finding none other than Shazer on a slick cutter.
Niagara then took a 56-54 lead, but things took a turn for the worse for the Purple Eagles when Aaliyah Parker fouled out at the 2:54 mark. Sure enough, Marist used the momentum to take a 58-56 lead at the two-minute mark, with Fisher swishing a key 3-pointer. Cunningham played an important role on the next Marist possession, crashing the boards on a Piddock miss and drawing a foul. After making both her free throws, Marist went up 60-56.
Up by two with half a minute remaining, a driving Fisher bucket appeared to make it a two-possession game, but it was waved off when Fisher received an offensive foul call. Niagara subsequently tied things at 58 on an Angel Parker jumper.
With 23 seconds remaining and Marist possessing the ball with the shot clock turned off, Shazer received the inbound pass but quickly lost her dribble due to defensive pressure applied by Niagara. Just before a five-second violation could be called on Shazer, Doughty bailed her out by calling a timeout, thus allowing Marist to retain possession.
With only 15 seconds left and the score tied at 60, Cunningham inbounded the ball to Shazer, who then tried to score on the inside. When Shazer missed her shot, Cunningham tried to grab the rebound, but senior Niagara guard Lorie Porter bumped her to the ground and was called for the foul. Cunningham got up from the floor clearly in some pain; after missing her first free throw, she made the second one to give Marist a one-point advantage with 10 seconds left.
“Catie’s our warrior. Everyone knew she was in pain today, she’s in pain a lot. She does the dirty work, she does the stuff a lot of people don’t notice,” said Doughty during the ESPN postgame interview.
Pierce quickly called timeout, allowing Niagara to advance the basketball. On the game’s final possession, Angel Parker sent a feed inside to sophomore forward Amelia Strong, who missed what would’ve been the game-winning layup. The Red Foxes immediately erupted in celebration at half-court.
Marist will try to make it a three-game win streak on Thursday night at 7 p.m. when they travel to Maryland to take on Mount St. Mary’s.
Photo Credit: Jaylen Rizzo
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