NEWTON, Mass. – The Mount Ida women's basketball team witheld an 11-0 late run by the Gators of Pine Manor College in the waning minutes of non-conference play on Wednesday night at the Mount Ida Athletic Center and claimed an 80-74 victory behind a record-breaking performance by Angelique Martinez (Taunton, Mass.).
Martinez set two school records scoring a Mustang-best 36 points on a Mount Ida single-game-record 17 made field goals. She also had an impressive performance on the boards pulling down a game-high 17 rebounds.
With the victory, Mount Ida improves to 6-9 overall and 0-1 in GNAC play. With the loss, Pine Manor falls back to .500 at 5-5 and 0-0 in the GSAC.
Stephanie Champoux (Tewksbury, Mass.) and Katlyn Jesse (Marshfield, Mass.) scored 11 and 10 points respectively while freshman Imani Bumpus (West Hartford, Conn.) grabbed 12 rebounds for the hosts.
Junior guard Alexis Lee (Akron, Ohio) hit seven three-pointers, tying a career-high, as she scored 22 points for the visitors. Senior Natasia Franklin (Windsor, Conn.) and freshman Erica Jones (Atlanta, Ga.) also finished in double digits for the guests, scoring 15 and 11 respectively.
Mount Ida dominated the play in the paint, outscoring Pine Manor 60-24 down low. The Gators game plan was taking shots from distance as they went 10-for-25 (40 percent) from beyond-the-arc.
The two teams traded baskets early on in the first half. With the score tied at 12, the Mustangs started to pull away with a 10-2 run to give them a 22-14 lead about halfway through the first period.
The Mustangs extended the lead to as much as seventeen and went into halftime leading 44-32.
The Gators slowly worked their way back into the game as they made six of nine shots (66.7 percent) from downtown in the second period.
The hosts maintained a double-digit lead for most of the half. Martinez made the lead twelve with her record-tying fourteenth field goal just under the five-minute mark. The visitors responded with an 11-0 rally featuring a three-pointer by Lee and punctuated by a layup by Jones to make the score 71-70, Mount Ida with about two minutes remaining.
Lee converted a free throw attempt, sandwiched between two Martinez layups, to make the score 76-71 with less than a minute to play. Lee then knocked down a three-pointer to close the gap to two.
Coming out of a timeout for the hosts, Maria Vaughan (Okinawa, Japan) came away with a steal and a chance to tie the game. Vaughan missed the layup and Bumpus controlled the defensive rebound before finding Martinez for a layup to secure both the victory and the Mount Ida single-game scoring record with 36 points.
Pine Manor won't have long to dwell on the loss as they are back in action tomorrow night. They will play another Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) opponent as they travel to Johnson and Wales (R.I.) for a 7 p.m. tip.
Mount Ida's next game is on Saturday when they host Rivier at 1 p.m. in GNAC conference play.
Some Content Courtesy of Pine Manor College Sports Information