LOUDONVILLE — It was the perfect play at the perfect moment.
Down a point to Niagara with 24.5 seconds in the fourth quarter on Thursday in front of a raucous Kids Day crowd at UHY Center, Siena women’s basketball head coach Jim Jabir called a timeout to set up his team’s crucial possession and assistant coach Terry Primm suggested an inbounds play that would use sophomore Elisa Mevius as a decoy.
It worked just like it was drawn up. Niagara’s defense drifted toward Mevius and Teresa Seppala cut to the basket, where Ahniysha Jackson found her for the wide-open go-ahead layup.
“I was just reading [Seppala’s] defender,” Jackson said. “I knew we needed a bucket right there.”
“[Seppala] had a half a step and ‘Baby’ [Jackson] put it right where she had to put it,” Jabir said. “It was really, really pretty.”
Two defensive stops sandwiched around a Ciany Conyers free throw later, and the Saints escaped with a crucial 66-64 MAAC win.
Siena (3-2 MAAC, 6-7 overall) came away with the win despite turning the ball over 25 times — 10 of them by Jackson — and allowing Niagara (3-2, 6-9) to grab 21 offensive rebounds.
“It was 46 possessions we gave them,” Jabir said. “It’s hard to beat a team when you’re giving up that much, but we got stops when we needed to. These guys were tired, and they could’ve quit. In the past, we have quit, and you know, we go around with a moral victory saying ‘Oh, we were so close.’ But, it’s nice to win this game.”
Despite the 10 turnovers, Jackson kept up her recent strong scoring form, as the Saints’ lone senior scored a game-high 17 points. Mevius added 15 points, seven rebounds, seven steals and four assists, and Seppala added 11 points and eight boards.
A pleasant surprise came in the form of Conyers, who chipped in a career-high 10 points. The 5-foot-8 guard from Taconic, Massachusetts came into Thursday’s contest having scored just 11 points over the five games she’d played in a Siena uniform.
Her breakout performance was a welcome sign for a Siena squad that’s been searching for a fifth consistent contributor alongside Mevius, Jackson, Seppala and Anajah Brown since Valencia Fontenelle-Posson’s season-ending ACL injury in December.
“She’s got a flair for the dramatic,” Jabir said of Conyers. “We’ve been waiting for this since the summer, so she picked a good time. She had some big shots, she made some really big plays.”
Jackson, who was coming off a career-high 31-point effort in Saturday’s win over Saint Peter’s, scored 10 of her 17 points in the first half. She struggled in the second half with turnovers and inconsistent shooting, but scored five key points early in the fourth quarter after Niagara had taken a 53-52 lead, and had the assist on Seppala’s go-ahead basket.
Mevius, playing with four stitches and a bandage on her right thumb because of a cut, had seven steals for the second consecutive game. The 5-foot-10 sophomore from Germany is averaging 4.3 steals per game, good for third in the country.
“It was good to see that we all stuck together,” Mevius said. “We turned the ball over, but in the end, like we said in the huddle, we said ‘We’re not losing this.’ We’re a team, and we stick together.”
“In the past, we would have broken down,” Jackson said. “For us to win this game and stay together, it felt really good.”
Up next for Siena is a Saturday afternoon road game against Fairfield, which entered Thursday as one of two remaining unbeaten teams in MAAC play.
Siena swept both of its meetings with the Stags last season, including a 55-51 overtime win in Fairfield, Connecticut, in a game where Siena only had six players suit up.
“We just keep building our momentum,” Jackson said. “Keep playing together. We know we’re going to have our bad moments, but we just capitalize off of them and just play together.”
NIAGARA
An. Parker 6-15 1-3 15, Aa. Parker 4-6 1-2 10, Strong 2-14 4-6 8, Strother 2-4 0-0 6, Hartley 0-5 1-2 1, Hicks 5-10 0-0 10, Dickerson 1-3 2-2 4, Rossignol 2-3 0-0 4, Glover 1-3 1-2 3, Porter 1-3 0-0 3, Fiddler 0-0 0-0 0, Buckley 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 24-67 10-17 64.
SIENA
Jackson 7-18 0-0 17, Mevius 6-11 2-3 15, Seppala 4-11 2-3 11, Brown 2-4 3-4 7, Gamble 2-3 0-0 4, Conyers 3-7 3-4 10, Yergey 0-4 2-2 2, Turi 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 24-59 12-16 66.
Niagara 14 17 19 14 — 64
Siena 17 17 17 15 — 66
Rebounds: Niagara 41 (Strong 11), Siena 41 (Seppala 8). Assists: Niagara 11 (Hicks 3), Siena 15 (Mevius 4). Turnovers: Niagara 22, Siena 25. Total fouls: Niagara 20, Siena 17. Fouled out: None. Technical fouls: None. Attendance: 1,058.