Dec. 18, 2006
Final Stats
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Freshman forward Rachele Fitz (Seven Hills, Ohio) scored a career-high 26 points to lead the Marist women's basketball team to its seventh consecutive victory, a 74-68 triumph over Harvard on Monday at Lavietes Pavilion. Fitz's point total is the highest by a Red Fox this season, and the highest by any Marist player since Fifi Camara tallied 31 against Iona on Dec. 11, 2005. The Red Foxes, who are off to their best start in school history, now stand at 8-2 overall.
With 6:20 left to play, Fitz's lay-up tied the game at 56 apiece. Not only did the Red Foxes not trail again after that basket, but it began a string of Fitz scoring 15 consecutive Marist points. Fitz hit her last seven shots from the field, and also finished with a team-best seven rebounds. Twenty of her points came in the second half.
Senior point guard Julianne Viani (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) had a season-high 15 points to go along with four assists. Red-shirt junior center Meg Dahlman (Spencerport, N.Y.) gave the Red Foxes three scorers in double digits with 11. Dahlman added five rebounds and four assists, which tied a career high.
The Red Foxes shot just 41.8 percent from the field, but Marist was 15-for-29 (51.7 percent) in the second half. Marist also converted 17 of its 21 free-throw attempts. Harvard shot 51.8 percent from the field, the first Marist opponent to hit at least half of its shots from the field in 16 games. Marist did force 23 Harvard turnovers, and the Red Foxes have now won 19 straight games when forcing at least 15 turnovers.
The game featured 10 ties and five lead changes. Marist led 34-32 at the half, and scored the first six points of the second half to expand its lead to eight. However, with the Red Foxes holding a 50-44 advantage with 11:26 remaining, the Crimson scored eight consecutive points in a span of 2:14 to take the lead. Viani hit a free-throw to break the run, and then converted a three-point play to tie the game at 54 apiece. Lindsay Hallion's jumper gave Harvard the lead back at 56-54 before Fitz hit the first of her seven consecutive field goals.
For Harvard (1-9), Lindsay Hallion shot 8-for-12 from the field for a team-high 16 points. Katie Rollins added 15, and Emily Tay had 14. Niki Finelli, Harvard's leading scorer entering the contest, finished with nine.
Marist also clinched a winning non-conference record for the third straight year. Prior to last year, the Red Foxes had never had back-to-back winning records against their non-conference opponents.
The win for the Red Foxes was their ninth straight against an Ivy League school. Marist will face its fourth and final Ivy League opponent of the season on Friday, when the Red Foxes face Yale in New Haven, Conn., at 7 p.m.
