KEENE, N.H. 12/3/11 - The Keene State College women's basketball team opened up Little East Conference play with a 71-62 victory over UMass-Dartmouth Saturday at Spaulding Gymnasium. With the victory the Owls improved to 5-1 on the season and 1-0 in LEC play, as the Corsairs dropped to 4-3 and 0-1 in league action.

Senior guard Sara Laudano (North Haven, Conn) led the way for the Owls with 17 points on 5-for-9 from behind the arc, and teammate Courtney Cirillo (Windsor Locks, Conn.) had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, and she added 4 assists and 4 steals to her performance.

"I like that we got the win, but we've got to get better," said Coach Keith Boucher. "We were too careless with the ball and had too many fouls. We got to work on our pressure, in terms of handling that pressure and performing on defense."

After a slow start by both teams, the Owls offense picked up when Laudano sank a three pointer at the 17:18 mark, off a pass from teammate Niki Cote (Ashford, Conn.).

 "I wanted to come out in our first LEC game and bounce back from that game against Amherst and score some points," said Laudano. "I think that game really helped us prepare for the rest of our schedule, especially the LEC games."

Cote was all over the score sheet, recording 8 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals.

Sophomore forward Carly Kiernan (Topsfield, Mass) came off the bench and hit consecutive jumpers at 4:11 and 2:57 to put the Owls up 27-20. Kiernan finished the game with 10 points, 3 points and 2 steals.

The Owls went in at halftime with a 31-22 lead, and wouldn't give it up the rest of the game.   The Owls continued to getting bench support from freshman forward Jamie Boyatsis (Dover, N.H.) who had 10 points and 6 rebounds on the day. Boyatsis went 8-8 from the free throw line, in 19 minutes of play.

"Jaime has gotten a lot better," said Boucher. "She plays within her body and I've been very happy with her so far this season."

With 6:17 remaining in the second half, Kiernan stole the ball at half court and dribbled it in for an easy lay-up to make it 57-46. A few minutes later, with 3:07 remaining in the game, Kiernan again picked the Corsairs pocket at half court and passed it to Laudano for another lay in to extend the Owls lead to 65-52.

With 2:40 left, freshman guard Kelsey Garrity (Somerville, Mass.) made a lay-up for UMass-Dartmouth to bring them within 11 points of the Owls, but Laudano hit her fifth three-pointer of the game off a pass from Cirillo at the 2:09 mark to put away the Corsairs.

The Owls won a close rebounding battle 44-43 and shot 17-21 from the line for 81%, while the Corsairs were 10-of-14 at the charity stripe.

Senior guard Stephanie Houtman (New Bedford, Mass.) finished the contest with a team-high 17 points for UMD. Garrity grabbed 10 boards to go along with 13 points in the losing effort for the Corsairs.  

Next up for the Owls, they will travel to UMass-Boston to face the Beacons on December 10th at 1:00 pm.