SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – Kaety L'Amoreaux tallied a team-high 26 points which included critical free throws down the stretch as the Fairfield University Women's Basketball team held on for a 69-67 win over Big East Seton Hall on Thursday night.
Lana McCarthy added a season-high 14 points while going 7-for-11 from the floor while also leading the squad with seven rebounds. With the victory, the Stags captured a win against a Big East foe for the fourth-straight season while defeating Seton Hall for the first time since the 1996-97 season.
"We showed some toughness," Head Coach
Carly Thibault-DuDonis said. "We really haven't been in a close game and I know that haven't been either. They started pressuring us in that second half and I thought we rallied after we stumbled.
Kaety L'Amoreaux showed some incredible poise for us as a point guard. Lana [McCarthy] really stepped up in big moments."
The Stags – who trailed just one minute in their opening weekend – wasted no time getting in front as L'Amoreaux swished through a triple just 30 seconds into the contest.
Fairfield would not trail for the rest of the contest and have now led their opponents in 117 minutes and 12 seconds out of a possible 120 minutes in their first three wins.
The Stags ran that lead up to 11-3 by using their inside presence with layups from
Cyanne Coe, McCarthy and a fastbreak score from
Meghan Andersen to cap the run.
Seton Hall used an 8-0 run of their own to tie the score by buckets from L'Amoreaux and McCarthy put the road side up four after the first quarter.
Fairfield's best quarter came in the third as they out-scored Seton Hall 25-14 which was highlighted by a 15-0 run to turn a 32-32 tied scored into a 47-32 lead.
L'Amoreaux netted the first four points of the run while McCarthy muscled in eight while capping off the stretch with an 'And-1' opportunity.
The Fairfield defense held the Pirates off the board for nearly six minutes in that deciding run with a pair of steals from
Meghan Andersen.
The Pirates would claw back to make it a one-possession game down the stretch after a 15-2 run in the fourth quarter. But the Stags would answer back every time in key spots.
Andersen and McCarthy hit two big buckets in the final three minutes to keep the lead at five. L'Amoreaux drew a crucial offensive foul in the final minute to force a Pirate turnover and then sealed the win with four big free throws in the last 11 seconds.
L'Amoreaux's 26 points extended her scoring average to 21.0 through the early season which also includes a .588 field goal percentage and a .667 clip from long-range.
The Stags will now take on another Big East squad when they host Villanova at Leo D. Mahoney Arena on Sunday at 2pm.
