Manhattan University Athletics

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. – Dead-eye shooting from beyond the arc by the Manhattan women's basketball team was the key to its 71-56 road MAAC victory at Rider Sunday afternoon.

Manhattan improves to 10-14 overall and 7-8 in the MAAC. Rider falls to 6-18, 3-12 in league tilts.

"Those three (Dee Dee Davis, Brazil Harvey-Carr, and Bella Nascimento) all have the green light, said head coach Heather Vulin following the game about the team's success from beyond the arc this afternoon. "When they're open, I don't care what their shooting percentage is right now from three. I really believe in them and if they take in-rhythm shots, they all have the green light. I thought overall they had really good shot selection and when they have good shot selection and move the ball, I think our offense looks really good."

The first quarter concluded with a deadlocked score of 12. In the opening 10 minutes, Brazil Harvey-Carr was firing from beyond the arc, going 2-of-4 from deep in the quarter.

In the second quarter, Bella Nascimento scored on consecutive trips down the court, connecting on a step-back J in transition. She followed it up with a far-side triple off a feed from Anne Bair.
 
Not too long after Nascimento's back-to-back buckets, Manhattan logged seven unanswered points to create a little distance from Rider, making the score 28-21. In that stretch, Dee Dee Davis drilled a triple and connected on two free throws while the other two points came from the hands of Nascimento.

At the half, the Green and White owned a 31-27 lead while shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc.

Manhattan opens the second half with an 8-3 run which concluded with Rider being forced to call a timeout to stop the momentum that was building for the Jaspers. The run was kicked off by another Davis connection from downtown. While Rider responded with their own triple, Jade Blagrove provided three points and then Brazil Harvey-Carr hit a free throw line jumper to force the timeout, making the score 39-30.

The third quarter concluded with two Jasper triples -- one from Harvey-Carr and the other from Davis from mid-court at the buzzer sounded -- to send the good guys into the final 10 minutes with a 52-41 advantage.
 
The Broncs refused to go away, going on an 11-4 run to open the final quarter to close the Jasper lead to only four, 56-52. The lead got back up to double digits thanks to a wide-open triple from Nascimento to make the score 65-53 with under two minutes left.

Davis had her way offensively this afternoon, finishing with 22 points while adding four steals and assists. Nascimento (15) and Harvey-Carr (13) also finished in double figures.

"I think my teammates put me in positions to be successful today," added Davis. "We moved the ball well and found the open woman. We looked to be really aggressive coming off of ball screens and looking high-low."

As a team, the Jaspers lit it up from beyond the arc, shooting 9-16 (56.3%) with all nine coming from Davis, Nasicmento, or Harvey-Carr.

Raphaela Toussaint provided Rider with 15 first-half points and ended with a game-high 24. Amanda Mobley distributed an impressive 13 assists.

Manhattan returns to action in Draddy Gym this coming Thursday against Marist for the team's Play 4 Kay game. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

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