Hamilton, Ont. - The McMaster women's basketball season ended on Wednesday night at Burridge Gymnasium. Hosting the Western Mustangs, the Marauders were unable to advance to the OUA quarter-finals, losing out to Western by a score of 77-59.
The game would start off slow for the home team, with Western scoring ten points before point guard Vanessa Bonomo got the Marauders are the board with a couple of a free throw shots. With the large lead built up by the Mustangs, McMaster was forced to play catch-up for the entire first quarter, and more. They would soon find themselves down by 12, missing shots and allowing the Mustangs to find ways to score in the key.
Hailey Milligan would down a lay-up and later Bonomo would connect for a jumper to end the quarter with the Marauders down by eight going into the second with a score of 20-12.
Stephanie Truelove and Isabel Ormond were the first Marauders to score in the second quarter, getting McMaster within five, just two minutes into the quarter.
After a lull in the scoring for both teams, Western would explode again on offence, draining two three-pointers and a lay-up to go ahead by double digits once again. Despite a number of contributors from McMaster, the Mustangs would continue to match baskets from the home team, and then some, earning a 16-point lead with less than a minute to go in the half.
The half would end with a score of 41-25 in favour of the Mustangs. Bonomo would have six for the Marauders thus far.
The Mustangs offence wouldn’t let up and the Marauders were in deep throughout the first half of the third quarter, but McMaster would find a way to get within nine at the 5:30 mark thanks to baskets from Liz burns and veteran Taylor Chiarot. It would force Western to call their first timeout of the half.
Unfortunately for the Marauders, the single-digit lead wouldn’t last long as Western shut out McMaster on the offensive for the majority of the second half of the third quarter. The Mustangs would build their lead back up to 14 and the Marauders would find themselves with some work to do in the fourth to catch-up.
Western would keep pushing and McMaster’s poor shooting numbers wouldn’t help in the fourth quarter. With four minutes left in the game, the Marauders would let Western’s lead slip to 18 points at 70-52, with a string of three-pointers dropping for the visitors.
McMaster would not be able to overcome Western's lead through to the end of the game, and would ultimately be knocked ouf of the 2011-12 OUA playoffs. The final score would read 77-59 in favour of the Mustangs.
Taylor Chiarot finished her career as a Marauder with 14 points and eight rebounds. Liz Burns was right behind her with 13 points and eight rebounds of her own and Hailey Milligan added 11 points and six rebounds for McMaster. Rookie Isabel Ormond was named McMaster's Big Mac Player of the Game.
For Western, Katelyn Leddy and Jenny Vaughan had 16 points each. Lacey Knox, named Western's Big Mac Player of the Game, and Rebecca Moss added 13 each and Annabel Hancock had 11 more for the Mustangs.
The Marauders finished the OUA regular season with an 11-11 record and a fourth place finish in the OUA West with a major improvement from the previous season.
