Lady Cavs head to first round

SHANE EVANS SME722@CABRINI EDU WEB EDITOR

With one blowout win followed by a close but disappointing loss, the Lady Cavaliers had trouble closing the season on a positive note. Regardless, the team is headed for the playoffs and will face Alvernia in the first round.

The last two games of the 2005-2006 season for the Cabrini women’s team could reflect on their whole season.

“We started the season slowly then we had some injuries,” freshman guard Nikki Duggan said. “Surprisingly, things started picking up. We worked through things, then we went through a bunch of games where we didn’t always win but we played really well. That all comes with experience though. There are no excuses, but I think with such a young team this year, there wasn’t going to be perfect consistency,”Duggan said.

Against Eastern in the second to last game of the regular season, Cabrini played like a WNBA team, beating the Eagles by 51 points.

Freshman Kayleen Smith

bucketed a career high 16 points off the bench, including a 4 for 4 effort from beyond the arc. Duggan added 14 points, eight of which were early in the game, which propelled the Cavaliers to a 34-16 halftime lead.

“Before the game we all knew from that point on every game was crucial, and we needed to go in with a high intensity level,” freshman guard Lauren MaGill said. “We knew that we were able to beat them because we had that mentality, and we also knew that if we played to our potential we could do really well.”

“Really well” translated into

Cabrini outscoring Eastern 43-7 in the second half, which led to the 74-23 romping against our across-the-street rivals.

Two days later against Immaculata University, the Lady Cavs didn’t have that same killer instinct.

Letting a late eight-point lead slip away, Cabrini was outscored 16-4 in the final six-plus minutes that turned into a 45-41 loss.

“I think we were too focused on the consequences of the game,” Duggan said. “Getting home court for first round of the playoffs was huge, and we lost sight of the game we were in at the moment, which contributed to our poor play down the stretch.”

The Cabrini women earned the 5th seed in the PAC playoffs and will take on Alvernia College Tuesday night. Earlier this season the Cavs were defeated in Reading by 22 points.

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