Nov. 17, 2006
Final Stats
DURHAM, N.C. - The Marist women's basketball team suffered its first loss of the season on Friday, as the Red Foxes were handed a 71-50 defeat by #6/#5 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Red-shirt junior center Meg Dahlman (Spencerport, N.Y.) led Marist in scoring and rebounding with 12 and eight, respectively.
The Red Foxes got off to a slow start as Duke scored the first 10 points of the game. The Blue Devils expanded their lead to 14-2 at the 13:15 mark after a jumper by Joy Cheek. However, the Red Foxes answered with five straight points as junior guard Courtney Kolesar (Concord, Ohio) hit a three-pointer and Dahlman hit a jumper.
Duke expanded its lead to 32-22 at halftime, as Kolesar was the Red Foxes' leading scorer in the first half with six. A basket by Dahlman with 17:47 remaining cut the Duke lead to nine at 36-27, but the Red Foxes would draw no closer as the Blue Devils answered with a 14-3 run over the following 6:15 to put the game out of reach. The largest lead Duke had was 26, when Bridgette Mitchell's basket gave the Blue Devils a 66-40 advantage with 4:17 remaining.
The Red Foxes shot just 28 percent (14-for-50) from the field, 24 percent from three-point range (6-for-25) and 64 percent (16-for-25) from the free-throw line. However, Marist turned the ball over just 15 times. In Duke's 102-49 season-opening victory against Northeastern on Saturday, the Blue Devils forced 36 turnovers.
Junior guard Nikki Flores (Montvale, N.J.) gave Marist two scorers in double digits with 10. Kolesar and red-shirt sophomore guard Julianne Viani (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.), who returned to action after missing the season opener with an injured thumb, followed with six apiece.
Carrem Gay and Abby Waner led Duke in scoring with 14 apiece, and Alison Bales followed with 12. Gay was also the game's leading rebounder with 10. Bales added four blocked shots, and Waner also contributed seven rebounds and four steals.
Marist held Duke to 42.4 percent (25-for-59) shooting from the field and 28.6 percent shooting (4-for-14) from three-point range. The Blue Devils also hit just 17 of their 30 free-throw attempts.
Marist (1-1) will return to action at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Villanova. In last year's meeting between the teams, the Red Foxes led by as many as 11 in the second half before suffering a 64-60 defeat.
