The Loyola College women’s basketball team knows that nothing is guaranteed – especially a 14-point lead in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament game.
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The Greyhounds (18-11) held on for a win Friday over Canisius, 63-60, despite losing a 14-point advantage in the final seven minutes ofthe game.
The win advances third seeded Loyola into a 9:30 a.m. semifinal game Saturday with Iona. It was also the first time Loyola was able to get the best of the Golden Griffins in the 2006-2007 season.
Senior guards Brittany Dunn and Jill Glessner stole the spotlight, with 20 and 18 points respectively. Glessner added seven rebounds and five assists to the win. For Canisius, Amanda Cavo scored 16, Megan Lyte had 14 and Abby Radunske poured in 11.
“This time of year you just have to survive and move on and we did,” said Loyola head coach Joe Logan, who on Thursday was named the MAAC Coach of the year. “We played great, but there was a five minute stretch there where we lost our focus and Canisius took advantage of it.”
Outside the five minute stretch when the double-digit lead disappeared, Loyola had every aspect of the game clicking. The Greyhounds out rebounded the Griffins, 34-24, and kept Canisius 20-56 (35.7 percent) from the field while shooting 22-41 (53.7 percent).
Loyola can thank clutch free throw shooting from Glessner and Dunn for holding onto the lead down the stretch. The pair combined to go 9-10 from the line in the final minute and a half.
“When you are a senior you find strength and focus in all types of places,” Dunn said of her 6-for-6 free throw shooting down the stretch. “You have to do what you have to do and I tried to do that for my team today.”
Glessner opened the game with back-to-back buckets and the Greyhounds kept that lead until the middle of the first half, where it changed four times. A Glessner jumper put Loyola up 21-20 with 6:38 left on the clock in the first half. From that point on Loyola never trailed.
“I think they were scared to play us,” Glessner said. “We know we did not play the best we could have played them on senior night, or up at Canisius, and we used that as our motivation.”
John Galayda/For the Baltimore Examiner
Loyola’s Brittany Dunn, center, tries to avoid Canisius’s Abby Radunske, left, and Amanda Cavo, right, in the second half Friday at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Conn.
