Women's Basketball Falls to Syracuse in WNIT Second Round, 65-43

Monday, March 19

Daskalakis Athletic Center

7:00

Drexel University

Syracuse

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

Women's Basketball Falls to Syracuse in WNIT Second Round, 65-43

3/19/2012 9:22:00 PM | Women's Basketball

BOX SCORE

PHILADELPHIA - A milestone season came to an end on Monday evening, as the Drexel women's basketball team fell in the second round of the WNIT to Syracuse, 65-43 at the Daskalakis Athletic Center. The Dragons were outdone by a dominating rebounding effort by the Orange, who outboarded Drexel 58-33 and came up with 22 second-chance points, compared to just five for the Dragons.

Kamile Nacickaite and Tyler Hale, each playing their final game in the Drexel uniforms, finished with 11 points each to lead the team. Drexel finished the season 19-14, its best record since its CAA championship year of 2008-09.

The Dragons hung with Syracuse for much of the game despite the Orange's advantage on the glass. The Dragons' defense made life difficult for Syracuse, holding them to just 35.4 percent shooting from the floor. They also forced 11 first-half turnovers by Syracuse as they went into the break down just 28-24.

In the second half, Syracuse made an effort to cut off Nacickaite, who tallied all 11 of her points in the first half. Despite this, the Dragons got scoring from other sources, as Hale had seven points in the stanza and Taylor Wootton had five of her seven. Although they were able to cut the Syracuse lead to one possession on several occasions, the Dragons could not manage the stop and the score they needed to get over the hump.

Drexel trailed just 44-41 with 6:18 to play before the Orange began a game-ending 21-2 run. Their size and physicality down low wore the Dragons down as they were able to extend possessions and work the ball inside for buckets to push out the lead.

With just under a minute to play, the senior class of Nacickaite, Hale, Marisa Crane and Ayana Lee were removed from the game by head coach Denise Dillon to a standing ovation by the crowd. The first class in Drexel history to reach four postseason tournaments, the Drexel seniors each played over 100 games for the Dragons. Marisa Crane, who overcame a knee injury last season that was aggravated during the team's trip to Italy over the summer, dished out a team-best three assists on Monday night. She finished her career with 308, eighth-most in Drexel history. Ayana Lee had two points and a rebound in 12 minutes, appearing in all but one game during her senior campaign.

The season saw several highlights, including the school's second-ever trip to the CAA Championship Game. Nacickaite, whose 127 games played ranks her tops among all players to don the blue and gold, finished her career with 1,649 points, fourth all-time at Drexel. She is the school's all-time most accurate three-point shooter, having hit 240 of 628 shots for a .382 percentage, ten percentage points better than anyone else in school history. The year also saw head coach Denise Dillon's 145th win last month at Old Dominion, making her the winningest coach in the Division I history of the program. She also got her 150th-career victory in the CAA Tournament semifinal win over James Madison. Last week, Drexel got its first-ever postseason victory, going on the road for its 10th road win of the year to defeat Fairfield in the first round of the WNIT, 57-41.

Drexel's success in 2011-12 was predicated on its defense, which finished the year with a 54.3 points-per-game-allowed average, tops in the CAA this year and the best in school history. The Dragons held 11 opponents under 50 points in 33 games, and three under 40 points. They also saddled CAA-champion Delaware with its two lowest outputs of the year in the teams' meetings at Drexel and in the league title game. The Dragons finished the year having won 14 of its final 21 games and six of its last eight.