As snow flurries fell outside Purcell Pavilion on the evening of Nov. 18, Dara Mabrey three-pointers fell through the net inside the arena.
The senior guard scored 15 first-quarter points to get the Irish out to an early lead it never relinquished in a 71-56 victory over the visiting Fordham Rams.
“I was just taking what they were giving me, and my teammates were doing a really good job of finding me,” Mabrey said.
Outside of Mabrey’s hot shooting night, it wasn’t head coach Niele Ivey’s team’s best performance of the young season. Turnovers and fouls plagued the Irish in the very early going.
The Rams scored the game’s first four points. Mabrey hit her first three to tie the game at five, and sophomore Maddy Westbeld put the Irish ahead 7-2 with her first points of the game.
From there, Notre Dame never looked back. But it wasn’t always easy.
Notre Dame started to assert its size advantage in the paint. It grabbed firm control of the rebounding battle which it ultimately won 46-26. Notre Dame should be able to do both of those things against Patriot League opponents like Fordham.
It still takes effort to utilize those advantages, though. Notre Dame aced its first three tests (Ohio, Western Illinois and Syracuse) in the effort department, but it showed signs of faltering against Fordham in the second half. That wasn't for a lack of trying, though, Ivey said.
“It was a really hard, adverse game,” Ivey said. “We knew coming into this game Fordham was a really tough team. We knew it was going to be a battle.”
The pesky Rams baited the Irish into some fouls. They were scrappy in their defense of the Irish’s bigger ball handlers, too, causing Notre Dame’s turnover problem to resurface a bit. The Irish weren't feeding the post as easily in the second half as they did in the first.
The mistakes could have been prevented by razor-sharp execution. Notre Dame just wasn’t razor-sharp, and the Rams took advantage as much as they could. It still wasn’t nearly enough. Fordham never crept within a closer margin than seven points in the second half.
"I thought we were really gritty and we played together," Ivey said.
Once the Rams keyed in on Mabrey, who finished with 20 points, Westbeld and freshman guard Sonia Citron picked up the slack. Those two combined for 30 points. Westbeld followed up her big game at Syracuse with 18 points and seven rebounds.
Notre Dame had a season-high 20 turnovers. Eight of those were Fordham steals. Notre Dame only scored 29 second-half points. The Irish got the job done, but the Rams’ style of play opened Ivey’s eyes to an opposing blueprint Notre Dame needs to watch out for as the season moves along.
“They kind of got us in the half-court game, and that’s not our game,” Ivey said. “We need to get stops and run. We didn’t get a chance to do that in the third quarter. That really slowed us down, and it took us a minute to really get back into our up and down game.”
Up next is another home game against Bryant on Sunday at 5 p.m.
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