Broncs fall to 1-4 after loss to VCU

By Kadie DiGiuseppe

After falling to 1-3, Rider women’s basketball traveled to Virginia Commonwealth University looking to recover from its one-point loss to La Salle, but the Broncs were defeated by the Rams 75-60 on Nov. 24, bringing their record to 1-4. 

Senior guard Mariona Cos-Morales secured the first points for the Broncs before going down by as much as 10 points in the first quarter. 

Cos-Morales continued to score despite trailing the Rams, while senior guard Gabby Turco and junior forward Emilee Tahata both added triples. 

At halftime, the Rams went up by 21 points, bringing the score to 40-19. During the first half, VCU went on 12-0 and 9-0 runs to obtain its large lead.

Head Coach Lynn Milligan said, “We’ve got to give ourselves more opportunities. We’ve got to get on the glass on the offensive end so that we can get some more opportunities to get some more points on the board.”

The Rams opened up the second half of play scoring six more points before the Broncs were able to go on a 15-0 run that included seven points from Turco.

“She’s become our top scoring threat and the biggest thing is just she’s been consistent with that and that’s never easy to do,” said Milligan. “She’s found ways to score and I think her teammates are finding her. She just finds a way.” 

“Gabby is super impactful. She has that voice. She is a hard worker. She knows what she’s doing and it’s pretty obvious,” said freshman guard Jocelyn Chavez. 

With less than two minutes left in the quarter, Chavez’s 3-pointer brought the Rams lead down to 10 points. 

Rider tried its best to get something going in the fourth quarter with Cos-Morales, Turco, Chavez, freshman guard Camryn Collins, freshman guard Emmy Roach, senior guard Jamia Blake and freshman forward Winner Bartholomew adding 20 more points. 

However, their efforts were not enough to stop the Rams, which resulted in the 75-60 loss for Rider. 

Turco led the team in scoring with 18 points while Cos-Morales and Chavez combined for 17. 

Cos-Morales said, “We know that there’s a lot to work on and we have a lot to improve on as a team but we also agreed that it was a great step in the right direction. There was a lot of things that we have been working on that we were happy about but again, we are in a very ambitious mindset so we are kind of focused on the thing’s we got to work on.”