Women's Hoops Claims 71-69 Thriller Over Mitchell Tuesday Night

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) women's basketball team survived an all-out thriller with the Mariners of Mitchell College (MC) Tuesday night, earning a 71-69 win to improve to 4-0 at home to start the season, in an intrastate non-conference contest inside the new-look O'Connell Center.

Junior point guard and captain Amanda Fudge (Middletown, Conn.) had a career-night for the Blue Jays, scoring a career-high and game-high 27 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field. Fudge had four (4-7) of USJ's six three-pointers as well in the triumph and she was clutch at the charity stripe too, connecting on 7-of-8 attempts. Sophomore forward Jordan Ouellette (Bristol, Conn.) was once again a force to be reckoned with for the Blue Jays as well, scoring 16 points and grabbing eight rebounds on the night. 12 of her 16 came in the second half. Ouelette has been electric over the last three games this season:

'Air Jordan'

Jordan Ouellette This Season

                        1ST 4                LAST 3
                       GAMES             GAMES

PTS                    36                     54

REB                    15                     29

FGM                   16                     25<<

>>7 FGM in each of her last three games

Give credit to the Mariners, they did not back down and outrebounded USJ by 10, 44-34, behind their star senior forward Amina Wiley (New Rochelle, N.Y.), the New England Collegiate Conference's top scorer (22 PPG) and field-goal shooter (60% FG). She finished with her fifth double-double of the 2021-22 season (22 PTS, 15 REB), which normally was a recipe for success (MC 3-1 entering Tuesday when Wiley has a double-double). Saint Joseph made things tough on her though, as she shot just 8-of-19 from the floor, including a miss with two seconds to go that would've tied the game.

PLAYER QUOTE [Amanda Fudge] "The best thing was making our shots. We put up a lot more shots during the week, and that really helped us a lot. I take a lot of pride in working on my game. That is the only way to get better, and that's the only way to perform the way we performed tonight, to pull out a close win."

COACH QUOTE [Wendy Davis] "We beat a really good team tonight. They are very athletic, they beat us on the boards like they have with all their opponents, but we found a way to win. We had a great first half, and in the second half we did all we could to hang on. This was a gut check for sure. I love playing Mitchell. We are such similar teams. We could play each other 10 times and we would each win five."

GAME INFORMATION
Score: Mitchell 69, Saint Joseph 71
Records: MC 4-4, USJ 4-3
Location: O'Connell Center | West Hartford, Conn.

UP NEXT
The Blue Jays will be back in action on Thursday, December 9, in their final non-conference game of the season, taking on the Trailblazers of MCLA on the road at 7:00 p.m.

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