BUSHMAN SCORES 1,000th POINT AS SAINTS SURGE PAST MUSTANGS
Feb. 6, 2008
Newton Centre, MA - Senior guard Brittany Bushman (Portsmouth, NH) became the 18th player in Emmanuel women's basketball program history to score 1,000 career points, when the Saints downed the Mustangs of Mount Ida College, 94-65, on Wednesday night. Bushman entered the game just 11 points shy of the highly coveted milestone. She scored her 1,000th career point five minutes into the second half of play and finished with 12 points and 5 steals on the night.
With Emmanuel's win over Mount Ida, the Saints improved to 16-5 overall and remain unbeaten in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) at 9-0. The Mustangs picked up their 6th GNAC loss and now stand at 3-6 in the conference and 6-15 overall.
The first half of play set the tone for the rest of the contest as the Saints came out firing. In the first four minutes of play EC went on an 18-2 run. Immediately following, the host Mustangs cut the lead to ten with the help of Nicole Casimiro (Lee, NH/Oyster River) who had ten of her twelve points in the opening stanza. The remainder of the first set was controlled by the Saints, as they were led by the continued strong play of sophomore guard Iman Davis (Toms River, NJ). Davis netted ten of her team high 15 in the first half. The Saints shot 50% from the field in the first half and made 12 of 18 from the charity stripe. The halftime buzzer sounded with the score at 52-29 in favor of the visitors.
Emmanuel's pressure defense forced 40 turnovers by Mount Ida. Emmanuel earned 29 steals and scored 37 points off of the host's errors. The Saints blew the lead wide open in the second half. Four Emmanuel players ended up scoring in double digits. Along with Davis and Bushman, senior guard Jade Paez (Bronx, NY) hit for 13 points and freshman forward Akello Ragwar (Westford, MA) scored a season-high 12 points in the win. Rookie point guard Casey Shevlin (Medford, NY) dished out a game-high 7 assists, while collecting 5 steals for the Saints.
Crystal Burgess (Lowell, MA) led the Mustangs with a game-high 25 points and a team-high 7 steals. Mount Ida continues their season with two more home games on the schedule with the most recent coming this weekend against Simmons College at 1:00 p.m.
Emmanuel is back in action on Saturday (2/9), when the Saints travel to Suffolk University to take on the Rams in a 2pm start.