Game Notes
The Fairfield University women's basketball team heads to Jersey City, N.J. Friday night for a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) contest with Saint Peter's College. The Stags, 12-6 overall, are in search of their third consecutive MAAC win, while the Peahens, 3-16 on the season, lost their last outing on Monday.
John Cummings and Maria Conlon will call all the action live onWVOF 88.5 FM and fans can also visit the Saint Peter's athletic website for viewing options.
Tonight's game between Fairfield and Saint Peter's is a par of the Jesuit Basketball Spotlight (JBS). The JBS project is a nationwide effort to identify basketball games between Jesuit schools and, through those games, bring greater positive awareness to Jesuit education and mission. This project was developed by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) in response to member institutions wanting to spread the word of Jesuit higher education through the more than 90 basketball games in which Jesuit institutions play each other. Fairfield is 2-1 in JBS contests this year with wins over Canisius and a loss at Loyola.
Fairfield and Saint Peter's are meeting for the 70th time with the Peahens holding a 37-32 advantage - the only team in the league that has a winning record against the Stags. The Peahens won the last meeting between the two squads, 55-41, in Jersey City February 5, 2010, which snapped a four-game series win streak for the Stags. The Peahens were the opponent in Joe Frager's first-ever MAAC contest, a game Saint Peter's triumphed in 71-53, also at the Yanitelli Center. The Stags won the next four meetings and Frager is 4-2 against the Peahens in his career at Fairfield. Saint Peter's won the first six meetings between the two teams and 14 of the first 15, with the Stags victory coming 79-70 in overtime during the 1982-83 season. The Stags then won nine of the next 11 and while they have six win streaks of three or more games, they have never won more than four consecutive games in the series. Saint Peter's last won back-to-back games against the Stags in sweeping the 2001-02 series and the first meeting of the ensuing year.
With its 37 points allowed on Sunday the Stags have now held five teams -Niagara twice - to 40 or fewer points in a game this season. The effort lowered the Stags MAAC leading scoring defense to 48.0 points per game, a number that is good for second in the nation through games of January 23. The Stags are also leading the league in field goal percentage defense and three-point field goal percentage defense as well as blocked shots.
Saint Peter's is 3-16 on the year, 3-5 in the league, after falling 65-52 at Siena on Monday evening. The Peahens, who opened the year by dropping 11 consecutive games, have won two of their last four contests. Saint Peter's enters Friday's game with a -12.7 scoring margin and a -5.1 rebound margin. Jynae Judson is the only player averaging over eight points a game, contributing 13.4 on the year and raising that number to 14.4 in conference games. Judson also leads the team in rebounding at 7.1 caroms a contest, with Charlene Riddick next at 6.4 rebounds a contest. The Peahens are shooting 33.3 percent from the field as a team, hitting 65-241 from behind the arc, while opponents are knocking down 41.1 percent from the field and 110-327 from downtown.
Taryn Johnson corralled a career-high 17 rebounds in the Stags win over Niagara - a single-game conference-high this season. She becomes the fifth player in program history to reach 17 boards in a single-game. Johnson, who scored 13 in the game, has now recorded a team-best four double-doubles, which ranks third in the conference. Johnson enters play on Friday third in the conference at 8.4 rebounds per game. In eight conference games, Johnson is averaging 8.1 boards per a game, with 32 of her 65 rebounds being of the offensive variety.
Fairfield went 24-34 (70.6%) from the stripe in its weekend wins over Canisius and Niagara, after shooting just 42.9 percent (9-21) from the stripe during the three-game losing streak. Fairfield, which is now shooting 67.2 percent from the line as a team for the year, hit 74.8 percent (104-139) from the line over a seven-game stretch from December 5 through January 8. The Stags have made 70 percent or more from the line seven times this season.
The Stags have completed two MAAC season series already, sweeping both Canisius and Niagara. Fairfield has now completed 29 home-and-home regular season sets with MAAC foes under Joe Frager and have swept 13 of them. Fairfield has split 12 season series and been swept just four times in the regular season during the past four seasons.
