DUDLEY, Mass. (Jan. 16) – The Nichols College women’s basketball team earned its first The Commonwealth Coast Conference victory with an 87-47 victory over visiting New England College Saturday afternoon. The Bison were led by four players in double digits, including 11 points from senior guard Alena Jasinski (Canton, Conn.), who also added three steals.
Junior forward Jessica Nelson (North Providence, R.I.) added 14 points, while junior guard Ashley Robidoux (Milford, Mass.) chipped in with 11 and a team-high eight rebounds. Senior guard Lyndsey Bennett (North Brookfield, Mass.) finished with 12 points, five assists and four steals.
For the Pilgrims, sophomore forward Rachel Williams led the team with 12 points and eight rebounds, while graduate student guard Jenny Bronson added 10 points to go with a team-high five assists.
Nichols jumped out to a 5-0 lead and never trailed in the game. Robidoux hit a layup to cap a 21-6 run to give the Bison their largest advantage of the opening frame at 34-19 with just over five minutes left. A steal by Williams set up a fast-break layup from Christina Bagnera with under a minute to play in the first half to cut the Bison’s lead to single digits at 36-27, but consecutive free throws from Robidoux gave the home team a 38-27 lead headed into the break.
The bench added 34 of the Bison’s 49 second-half points, led by nine from Jasinski. Nichols created 14 points off of 14 NEC turnovers in the half and didn’t allow a Pilgrim basket over the final 4:37 to extend its lead to the final 40-point margin.
Nichols is back in action on January 20 in a 6 p.m. TCCC game at Salve Regina. New England College hosts Regis the same day for a conference game at 5:30 p.m.
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