Women's Basketball Opens CAA Play with Win Over Towson

Monday, January 2

Daskalakis Athletic Center

2:00 p.m.

Drexel University

10-2, 1-0

Towson

7-5, 0-1

TOWSON

Drexel

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

Women's Basketball Opens CAA Play with Win Over Towson

1/2/2017 3:45:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA – The Drexel women's basketball team has achieved much of its early success this season on the strength of its prolific senior class. On Monday, however, it was the Dragons' freshmen that led the way as Drexel topped Towson in the teams' Colonial Athletic Association opener, 58-48. Ana Ferariu scored 17 and Bailey Greenberg added 13 points and nine rebounds to send the Dragons to their seventh-straight win and 16th straight victory over the Tigers.

Ferariu and Greenberg combined to score 19 of Drexel's 29 points in the opening half as the Dragons' offense was slow to get started. Drexel shot just 32 percent (8-for-25) from the floor in the first 20 minutes, but the freshman duo combined to go 6-for-8 to pace the Dragons.

Kelsi Lidge had an impressive game inside, scoring six points and adding eight rebounds, four assists and two steals. Meghan Creighton scored 10 points - all in the second half - and added five boards and four assists. She saw a streak of 201 minutes without a turnover snapped early in the third quarter, her first turnover since Dec. 3 at Cornell. Jessica Pellechio added six points, Sarah Curran, who was named the CAA's Player of the Week earlier in the day, chipped in four and Aubree Brown added two to round out the scoring for Drexel.

Both teams got off to slow offensive starts, and the Tigers held a 13-6 lead with 2:54 to play when Ferariu hit a free throw to spark a 7-0 Drexel run. Ferariu added a lay-up, followed by four Kelsi Lidge free throws to knot things up at 13. In all, the Dragons were 8-for-10 from the charity stripe during the first quarter as their ability to draw fouls and convert proved the most efficient part of their offense.

Drexel took a one-point lead on a Ferariu free throw with eight seconds to play in the first quarter, and though the Tigers prevented them from extending the lead beyond reach before halftime, the Dragons would never trail again. They used an 8-0 run spanning the two quarters to take a six-point lead, 21-15, with 7:59 remaining in the half. That came courtesy of the first of two Pellechio three-pointers in the second quarter. After Towson inched back within two, Pellechio hit her second to make it a five-point game, 24-19, with 5:10 remaining in the second quarter.

Ferariu finished off the first half with five more points, giving her 13 before intermission. She knocked down a pair of free throws with 1:29 to play, then hit a three-pointer on Drexel's next possession to give them a 29-21 lead heading into the break.

While Ferariu was providing some of the flash, Greenberg was doing much-needed work on the inside. She had six points on 3-for-3 shooting in the first half, adding five rebounds. She scored the first two buckets of the game for Drexel as the Dragons were just 4-for-11 from the floor in the opening quarter. Lidge also had five rebounds as Drexel outdid the Tigers 21-18 on the glass. The Dragons, who came in with the worst rebounding margin in the CAA, would pull down 41 boards overall, while Towson had 36.

Drexel methodically expanded its lead in the second half, going on a 7-0 run early in the third quarter that was capped by a Creighton three-pointer to make it 36-25. Towson took a timeout and would score the next five points, but Drexel responded with another scoring spurt, this time a 9-0 run to push the lead out to 45-30. Creighton again added a three-pointer ot that stretch, with Curran knocking down a lay-up to top it off.

Lay-ups by Ferariu and Greenberg made it an 18-point game midway through the fourth quarter, and though the Tigers would gradually chip that down to 10 points, they could not cut the lead under double digits the rest of the way.

The win was the Dragons' sixth straight in a CAA conference opener.

The Dragons will return to action on Friday night when they host Elon at the DAC. That game tips off at 7:00 p.m.