Dec. 29, 2006
Final Stats
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Red-shirt junior center Meg Dahlman (Spencerport, N.Y.) and red-shirt junior guard Julianne Viani (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) scored 15 points apiece to lead the Marist women's basketball team to a 76-43 triumph over Liberty in the first round of the Terrapin Classic on Friday. In Saturday's championship game, the Red Foxes will face defending national champion Maryland, a 92-57 winner over UNC Greensboro in the day's second first-round tournament game. It will be the first time the Red Foxes have ever faced a defending national champion.
Both Dahlman and Viani tied their season highs in scoring. The Red Foxes shot 50.0 percent from the field (24-for-48), tied their season high with 11 three-pointers, and hit 17 of their 20 free-throw attempts. Marist held Liberty to 34.0 percent shooting from the field, and the Lady Flames hit just two of their 20 three-point attempts. Marist also turned the ball over just five times in the game, tying a season best.
Senior point guard Rachele Fitz (Seven Hills, Ohio). Fitz, who made her first career start in this game, added 12 points, two assists and a steal.
The Red Foxes scored the first eight points of the game on three-pointers from Viani and junior forward Sarah Smrdel (Mentor, Ohio) and a long two-pointer from Dahlman. From then on, the Red Foxes never trailed by fewer than five points. Marist jumped out to a 34-15 halftime advantage, and never trailed by fewer than 19 in the second half. The Red Foxes' largest lead was 37 points.
Marist held Liberty's Megan Frazee, who came in averaging 19.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, to just four points and five rebounds. Frazee shot just 2-for-8 from the field. Michelle Parker led Liberty with 12 points, with all of them coming in the second half.
The victory marked the fourth time this year the Red Foxes won by at least 30 points, and the sixth time Marist held a team to under 50 points.
Marist will face Maryland on Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Comcast Center in College Park, Md. The Red Foxes are the only non-Atlantic Coast Conference team in the country to face both participants in last year's national championship game - Duke and Maryland - in the 2006-07 regular season.
