BENNINGTON, Vt. – The Southern Vermont College women's basketball team helped its lone senior tack up a win in her last game at the Mountaineer Athletic Center Thursday night—defeating Bay Path University 55-36 in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) action.
SVC scored 16 points in each of the first three quarters, while holding the Wildcats to single digits in all of those frames, to stake a 21-point halftime lead and a 48-19 upper hand going into the fourth. BPU outscored the Mountaineers by 10 in the final 10 minutes, but that would be well short of the comeback needed as the hosts finished off the season sweep.
Both teams conclude the regular season on Saturday as Southern Vermont (4-20, 3-12 NECC) heads to Elms College for a huge 1 p.m. start while Bay Path (0-22, 0-15 NECC) hosts Newbury College at 6 p.m. A victory at EC will likely give the Mountaineers the tiebreaker needed to make the league playoffs.
Prior to tip-off, SVC recognized and honored Stephany Ferreira (Shelton, Conn.) who became a senior this spring and is set to graduate in December after studying abroad in Spain during the fall. She provided six rebounds in her first collegiate start with her three offensive caroms helping the Mountaineers outscore BPU 13-6 in second-chance points.
Southern Vermont junior Maddy Main (Bennington, Vt.) tallied game-highs of 24 points and 16 rebounds for her 14th double-double of the year; she came three blocks shy of the triple-double with seven stuffs, and she also had three assists and three steals in the win. Sophomore Sarah Poirier (Ferrisburgh, Vt.) followed with 10 points and eight boards in 31 minutes of reserve time while freshman Brenna Hudson (Malone, N.Y.) had eight points and six rebounds for SVC.
Bay Path senior captain Kaylee Herring (Worcester, Vt.) was the only Wildcat to reach double figures in the points column as she scored 10 in addition to dishing out three assists, and graduate student Paige Marshall (New Britain, Conn.) led the visitors in rebounds with 15 on the night. Junior Jai Ruiz (Hadley, Mass.) came off the bench to notch five points, nine boards, and four steals in the effort.
While shooting 40.4 percent (21-52) from field goal range, the Mountaineers held BPU to just an 18 percent (11-61) clip from the floor; that made way for SVC to allow the fewest points in a game since a 69-27 home win over Becker College on February 3, 2015. Southern Vermont was dominant from both inside and out—chalking up a 6-0 advantage in made 3-pointers while scoring 24 points in the paint to the Wildcats' 16.
SVC sophomore Dani Biggers (Broadalbin, N.Y.) hit a triple to help her team register the first seven points of the game, and Poirier then hit a pair of her own to give the Mountaineers a good cushion. Main had a slow offensive start as she didn't score a basket through the opening 9:35 of the contest, but she started to get things going with a trey in the final minute of the first stanza before hitting another during a 20-3 SVC run which stretched through the front-end of the second period. The downtown buckets continued to fall for Southern Vermont as Main found sophomore Brianna Soucy (Salem, Mass.) at the left edge of the arc for a quality look with just seconds to go before the halftime buzzer.
Main recorded 10 points in the third quarter alone—six of those coming in a 10-2 run which put SVC up 42-15 midway through the frame. Six Wildcats got in on the scoring in the last 10 minutes with Herring connecting for four during a 13-0 Bay Path run, but time ran out on the visitors as Southern Vermont grabbed its fourth-straight home victory over BPU and its eighth win in the last 10 overall meetings between the two sides.
– #LetsGoSVC –