WOLFVILLE, N.S. – The U SPORTS No. 3 ranked Acadia Axewomen opened the 2017-18 AUS regular season with a convincing 92-61 win over the visiting Memorial Sea-Hawks.
Axewoman Allie Berry was named the Subway Player of the Game for her outstanding inside game that offered 20 points and nine rebounds. On the losing end, Sydney Stewart netted a Sea-Hawk high 18 points.
Tied at 11, with just over two minutes remaining in the opening quarter, the Axewomen pushed into a 20-11 lead off of a Kelsey Rice layup followed by an Ellen Hatt jump shot after a Sea-Hawk turnover in the closing of the first quarter.
Haley MacDonald put the icing on the cake with a three pointer in the opening minute of the second quarter to give the Axewomen a 23-11 lead.
The Axewomen would hold on to a lead for the remaining three quarters, growing the advantage to a game high of 31 in the closing minute of the final quarter.
Memorial was out-rebounded 46-28 and recorded 17 turnovers compared to Acadia's 12.
Acadia had 31 points off the bench, while the Sea-Hawks posted only 10. Axewoman Ellen Hatt led the way with 11 points in her roll as a reserve.
Brooklyn Wright and Lindsay Taylor added 14 and 11 points respectively to Memorial's total. Stewart's 18 points earned her the Sea-Hawks' Player of the Game honours.
The Axewomen showed several moments of unfocused play, allowing Memorial to close large Acadia leads.
"The spurts were mostly a result of our inattention to the details of what we were trying to do. We just needed a few reminders to focus back in," said Acadia head coach Len Harvey.
Overall, Harvey was pleased with the team's performance after two weeks off from their last exhibition game.
"I think we met some expectations, we are continuing to grow as a group, but I thought we got contributions from a lot of areas. It was a nice 'committee' win tonight," noted Harvey.
Concluding, "Our biggest thing we need to work on is turning the dial up to 11 and leaving it there for 40 minutes. We still have too many casual moments that bite us. We'll continue to get better in that area."
The Axewomen and Sea-Hawks meet again for the second of two Acadia home games against Memorial. Game time 1:00 pm, Sunday, Nov. 5.