RedStorm women back on winning side at St. Catharine

St. Catharine, Ky. --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm women's basketball team played on Thursday night on the road at St. Catharine College. The game was much like art, it wasn't always pretty, but it was effective. Rio Grande led the entire game en route to a 71-51 victory.

Rio Grande (15-12, 6-5 MSC), who had entered the game having lost four of its last five, ended a two-game losing skid and moved back into sole possession of fourth place in the Mid-South Conference. 

After a sluggish start, Rio gained control of the game midway through the first half with a 15-5 lead. Twice the RedStorm pushed the advantage to 16 points in the first half at 30-14 and 32-16. Rio would lead 32-18 at the half.

The RedStorm used a balanced attack with three players scoring in double figures. Junior guard Jenna Smith (Bellefontaine, OH) led the way with 13 points. She also pulled down six rebounds. Junior center Ashley Saunders (Amanda, OH) and freshman forward Kati Moore (Lancaster, OH) both added 10 points. Saunders led Rio with eight rebounds and Moore scored all of her points in the second half.

Two other players were on the verge of double figures as junior forward Leah Kendro (Strongsville, OH) and sophomore center Ediesha Cole (Cleveland, OH) both scored eight points. 

Rio did not shoot the ball particularly well, connecting on only 24-of-61 (39.3 percent) attempts, but did manage to hit 7-of-18 (38.9 percent) from beyond the three-point arc. Rio also turned the ball over 24 times, but did put the clamps St. Catharine on the defensive end, which was a huge key in the game. 

"We're extremely pleased and happy to get a W at this stage of the game. You're on the road and we didn't play that well, but we had some positives," said Rio Grande head coach David Smalley. "We kept them off the offensive boards, they had 23 against us at home and we held them to 16 here so, you look for your positives."

"I thought we did some okay things, we just didn't put the ball in the hole," Smalley added. "Early on we had three or four point blank bunnies that just didn't go down for us and I'm thankful that St. Catharine didn't shoot the ball well either."

"It was an ugly game, in the second half, I thought our bench did some pretty nice things, gave some of our starters a little bit of rest down the stretch, but it was a stressful game, but it's a W, it's another conference win, it's a win on the road and it gives us a sweep of St. Catharine," he said. "We're happy with where we are right now, we got through this melee without any major injuries and I thought some of our post did pretty well." 

St. Catharine (8-19, 2-9 MSC) shot 30.3 percent (20-of-66) from the field, including 2-of-11 (18.2 percent) from three-point land. The Patriots tallied 27 turnovers.

Renna Haliburton was the top scorer for SCC and the game's high scorer with 19 points. Erin Rogers also scored in double figures with 12 points. Sa'de Mullins led all players with 14 rebounds. 

Rio Grande moves to 3-0 all-time versus St. Catharine, including the season sweep in 2009-10. Rio knocked off the Patriots 84-66, January 21 at Rio Grande.