By Garrett Collins
Before the Plattsburgh Women’s basketball team could return to their families for the long break, there was one more stop that they had to make. This stop was in Canton, New York when they visited the St. Lawrence Saints for an inter-conference matchup. The Cardinals, who came into the game looking red hot after going undefeated the week before, beating the Norwich Cadets and SUNY Buffalo in the Cardinal classic. The red hot Cardinals, however, were put on ice after the Saints routed the Cardinals by a score of 41-83.
The Cardinals opened up the action with a jumper made from junior guard Mya Smith and would take the lead for the first and only time of the game. Smith led the way for the first quarter, scoring all four points for the Cardinals. The scoring push from Smith was not enough to hold back the streaking offence of the Saints who, after the Smith bucket to open up the game, went on a 7-0 run to take the lead in the early stages of the game.
After taking the lead, the Saints never looked back, scoring another six points to extend their lead on the Cardinals to 11 points with a score of 15-4 to close the quarter. A trend that has become apparent in the early portion of the season is the poor shooting from the field in the opening quarter of games. This game was no different as the team shot 1-16 (6.25%) and did not make a single three pointer in the first quarter going 0-4. The abysmal shooting from the field continued for the Cardinals, cashing out a total of seven points when the clock hit zero at half time. The Cardinals went 2-11 from the field and once again didn’t make a single three pointer going 0-2.
“We couldn’t hit a shot, everything would just hit the rim and rattle out,” said first year forward Payton Couture, who had seven points and three blocks in the game.
The Saints offense continued to pile on the lead, extending the lead all the way to 37 by the end of the third. The Cardinals once again scored more goals than they did in the earlier quarter scoring 4-17 (23.53%) and managed to finally find their range from downtown making 1-4 (25%).
The final score going into the final quarter left nothing to the imagination for how the game was going to end, with a score of 62-20, by a spread of 40 points. Plattsburgh State would see the best output from their offence scoring 19 points. The team was able to develop an attack in the final quarter scoring 7-13 (53.85%) and went 3-7 (42.86%) from downtown which was their bst percentage of the game for the team.
“They were big, they had a lot of big tall athletic girls which we lack in size, so that was really a factor,” Cautore said.
Hopefully the Cardinals find their groove when they come home and welcome the Potsdam Bears in a conference matchup.
