The University of Rhode Island women’s basketball team (11-10) took on consecutive Atlantic 10 opponents when they visited Fordham University last Saturday in a 50-42 loss and hosted La Salle Wednesday night on route to a 62-52 victory.
Coming off of a three game A-10 winning streak Rhode Island was unable to continue their recent solid play, as they were held to a season low 42 points. On most nights with Rhode Island’s recent scoring outputs, holding the opposing team to 50 points would result in a victory.
Sophomore guard Charise Wilson led all scorers at the half with nine points to go along with five rebounds and two assists. The Rams trailed by just four points following the third quarter 37-33, but were outscored by four points in the fourth quarter (13-9). Although Rhode Island scored 10 points off of 18 Fordham turnovers, they gave up 14 second chance points to and were out rebounded 48-30.
“Offensive rebounds were a point of emphasis tonight after how we were out rebounded on the offensive end against Fordham,” La Force said. We made a point to disallow a good offensive rebounding team in La Salle to beat us on that end.”
Charise Wilson and Samantha Tabakman were the only Rams in double figures, with Wilson finishing with 15 points along with seven rebounds, five assists and three steals, and Tabakman tallied 10 points and nine rebounds.
“The loss against Fordham took the wind out of our sails a bit and it was important the past couple days regain our confidence and getting our focus right to achieve our goals for the rest of the season,†La Force said.
Following their first A-10 loss in four contests, Rhode Island responded in tremendous fashion with a 62-52 conference win against La Salle University. Senior forward Samantha Tabakman had a monster double-double night leading the way with 29 points, 12 rebounds, two steals, and one block.
“I’m just trying to do as much as I can for my team and just have a big post presence for them,” Tabakman said. “My guards do a great job to open up spacing for me I just have to finish. Tonight’s performance feels great we needed this win, Saturday’s game was a tough loss for us.”
Sophomore guard Charise Wilson also had an impressive showing with 14 points, three assists, and two steals. Rhode Island led La Salle at the half, 32-26. Tabakman led all Rhode Island scorers with 11 points. In the second half, URI outscored La Salle 30-26, and Tabakman again led the way with 18 points, eight rebounds, one steal, and one block.
Rhode Island will host Dayton University this upcoming Saturday at the Ryan Center at 2:00 p.m.
“We did not have a good showing against Dayton last time,” La Force said. “We lost by like 44 points, so it’s going to be an intense game for us, one we know we have to win and we’ll play that way from the onset.â€