Guest Contributor Ray Floriani: Iona at St. Peter's WBB

by Ray Floriani
JERSEY CITY, NJ - Throughout a difficult season the St. Peter's women have continued to work hard and persevere. Their efforts were rewarded with a 56-47 MAAC victory over Iona at Yanitelli Center on Thursday.

Sign outside Yanitelli.
Even this picture makes you feel the cold.

The efficiency numbers:

		Off.
	Poss.	Eff.
Iona	74	64
St. Peter's	73	77

The pace was probably a little quicker than both coaches would have wanted. It showed in some of the numbers in the Four Factors.

The game was a 32 possession affair at the half with the scored tied at 27 and the offensive efficiency 84.

The Four Factors:

		FTA
	eFG%	FGA	OR%	TO%
Iona	40	19	34	39
St. Peter's	39	21	31	25

Long time officiating friend Gary Schimel
just before play resumed

Neither team shot the ball well. Turnovers have been a problem for Tony Bozzella's Iona club but not at the magnitude of this evening. St. Peter's did not full court press but they did extend good half court ball pressure and force the Gaels into 29 turnovers. That came out to nearly twice as much made turnovers as made field goals (17). St. Peter's enjoyed a 22-8 scoring edge in points off turnovers which basically tells the story of this contest.

Freshman guard Aziza May gave St. Peter's a lift. Coach Stephanie DeWolfe noted that May had been struggling but hoped this would be a "reinforcement of what we work with and tell her in practice." May showed a nice mid range touch, scored 12 points on 5 of 7 shooting and added 6 steals to the St. Peter's cause. Another interesting, actually amazing, stat showed the 5-3 freshman leading all rebounders with 8.

Probably a good night for rebounding guards as Iona's backcourt of Diana Hubbard and Marissa Flagg tied for their team lead (with forward Anda Ivkovic) with 6 boards.

Iona simply struggled all over in the shooting department. They were just 9 of 22 (36.4 %) from the line. Just barely edging their 36.2% (17 of 47) from the field.

St. Peter's did not find the range as easy (37%) either. Only May and Jynae Judson (9 of 16) surpassed 50% from the field.

Despite giving up a size advantage inside, St. Peter's did a respectable job on the boards as Iona had a slight edge in the offensive rebounding percentage.

That Iona size did give them a 26-18 edge in points in the paint. Which is why perimeter contributions from the likes of May were so important to St. Peter's.

Game was delayed 20 minutes due to a campus wide power outage that lasted a brief time.

Numbers
St. Peter's improved to 2-14 (2-3 in the MAAC).
Iona is now 5-12 and 1-4 in conference. Gaels were led by sophomore guard Diana Hubbard with 20 points. Hubbard is an East orange, NJ native who starred at powerful Bloomfield tech. Judson of St. Peter's paced all scorers with 20 points.

The celebration after a well earned victory