Roberts Wesleyan’s women’s basketball never trailed as they cruised to an 84-60 win the men overcame a 16-point second half deficit to complete the sweep over Mercy with a 71-63 victory in their first East Coast Conference games of the New Year.
The women led by only two points late in the first quarter, but a pair of lay-ups and a three-pointer by Taya Andrews and two treys from Brooke Fields early into the second quarter extended the lead to ten points and they never looked back.
They blew the game wide open in the third quarter with six of their game total of 15 three-pointers in outscoring Mercy 31-13 to extend the lead to as many as 30.
“This is just another good-shooting game for us and another good win for our team,” leading scorer Andrews said. “Most of our plays are set up around the perimeter, so if we have an open shot we look to shoot the three.”
“We’ve been a good three-point shooting team all year and when we get wide open threes, we look to bury them,” Roberts second year head coach Gary Andrews said. “We have a lot of girls who can shoot the three and I think that makes us tougher to guard.”
Andrews, a freshman, set a career-high with 21 points to lead all scorers including five-of-seven from behind the arc. Fields scored 13 while Necadeh James and Kindsay Brandt each added 11 to the attack. Taylor Bynoe led the Redhawks with nine rebounds and tied Emily Miller and James with four assists each.
In the men’s game, Roberts shot just under 30 percent from the field in the first half and struggled defensively as they trailed 38-23 at halftime. Mercy extended that lead to 16 points early in the second half, but a trey by sophomore Zack Panebianco seemed to wake up the offense as Malik Dare then had a breakaway lay-up and Churchville-Chili grad and freshman guard Isaiah Lewis added a three-pointer to cut the deficit in half.
The defense limited Mercy to just three field goals over an 8:30 span and a Panebianco lay-up tied the game 55-55 with 4:50 remaining.
Dare hit a pair of lay-ups and Tristan Brown on a drive to put the Redhawks up by seven with :58 seconds left and a Dwayne Roberts drive to hoop and a foul with :36 on the clock secured the win with Lewis calmly making four foul shots on six attempts in the closing seconds.
“The second half we picked full court (pressure) and we were able to get them out of their comfort zone a little bit and that turned into our best offense and we fed off the energy,” Lewis said.
“If you don’t have heart defensively and part of the problem was us not sharing the ball well in the first half either,” Roberts head coach Rob McCoy said. “Second half we played really good defense and made them take tough shots, so I was very proud of our defense today.”
Dare led the Redhawks with 18 points and six rebounds, Lewis added 16 points with a team-best five assists while Panebianco also scored in double-figures with 13. Roberts shot a blistering 75 percent from the field in the second half while limiting Mercy to less than 38 percent shooting over the final 20 minutes in picking up their first conference win of the campaign.
