University of Hartford

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. - Hartford Women's Basketball took down the United States Coast Guard Academy Bears in dominant fashion 72-50 to pick up their first win of the season. 

Rapid Recap:

• Hartford would get on the board as Senior Taryn Blevins (St. Louis, MO) would splash home a three-pointer on the games first shot attempt. Both teams would trade buckets with the Hawks racing out to a 21-14 lead. With 19 seconds remaining in the First Quarter Hawks freshman Kaylee Saucier (Woodstock, Conn.) would knock down a three to extend the Hawks lead to double digits to end the quarter. 
• The Bears would start off hot in the second quarter and close the Hawk lead to just five points half way through the quarter. Senior Ava Naszimento (Seacaus, N.J.) would finish a lay up to put the Hawks up six. Before the Bears would respond on an 8-2 run to tie the game at 34. The Hawks would bounce right back and score five straight with a three from Saucier and then Saucier would jump a pass and find sophomore Gabrielle Matthews (Raleigh, N.C.) who hit a layup with 2 seconds left in the half to put the Hawks up 39-34 at the break.  
• Each team would exchange buckets to open the half before neither team would score for a full two minutes. After Naszimento connect a free throw the Hawks would end the Quarter on a 12-2 run preventing the Bears from scoring for the last 6 minutes and leading it 53-38. 
• Sophomore Allie Shenloogian (Park Ridge, N.J.) and Naszimento would open the fourth with a pair of buckets to extend the lead to 57-38. The Hawks would respond to a 5-0 Bears run by outscoring the Bears 19-4 for the rest of the game. Junior Maddie Maccannell (Portsmouth, N.H.) would score her first bucket after missing a year of action to put the cherry on top of a dominant 72-50 victory. 

Post Game Press:
"Our senior leadership is what went so well with us tonight," said head coach Jackie Smith. "We start our three seniors and they are doing a phenomenal job getting us ready. In addition our sophomore guards are doing their job and playing really well. It is nothing that I am doing. Coast Guard is such a hard and well coached team, they guarded us really well but we made the right adjustments and made the right stops allowing us to get going in transition. "

"It was a good one, Coast Guard knows how to play and they never went away no matter how much we were up by," said Saucier. "We have talked about how we didn't shoot a lot of threes thr last couple of games and we were able to knock them down tonight. Playing good defense and knocking down shots was a blast tonight." 

Inside the Numbers:

• Matthews led the Hawks in points with 17 on an efficient 8-20 shooting. Saucier and Naszimento combined for 27 with Saucier making four threes on seven attempts. 
• Shenloogian pitched in with a +19 rating and 9 points while shooting 50 percent from downtown.  
• The Bears did not lead for a second of the game. While the Hawks had a lead as large as 24.
• The Hawks defense dominated allowing just 16 second half points and forcing 20 turnovers. 

Up Next:
Hartford Women's Basketball will stay home as they take on cross town rivals Trinity College Bantams on Saturday night at 6 P.M. at Chase Arena. 

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