It was a quiet week in the athletics world at Misericordia University as only two teams saw action at home. The men’s and women’s basketball teams hosted Stevens University last Saturday as they wind down their seasons with one of their last conference games.

The women’s team played first in a very exciting game as it came back from a 17-point deficit to win the game. The Lady Cougars were helped by a huge second half comeback where it seemed like they couldn’t miss.

Melina Santacroce led the Cougars with a 15-point, 10 rebound double-double. She made huge plays during the second half comeback and truly looked like the best player on the court. Two other Cougars scored in double digits as Alyssa Bondi and Morgan Haefele had 12 and 10 points, respectively.

The Misericordia defense is what truly won this game as throughout the second half, its full court press was unstoppable. The Cougars forced three separate 10-second violations where the Ducks couldn’t get the ball past half court. The host team was all over the court, forcing turnovers and trapping the ball handler to get steals. Holding Stevens to just 22 points total in the second half, the Cougars scored 22 points in the third quarter.

The men’s basketball team didn’t have as much luck as it came out a bit flat and couldn’t get anything going throughout the game. The Cougars lost, 89-53, in a game they hope to forget as they move forward to Lycoming and FDU this week. The Cougars had just one player reach double digits in scoring as Kevin Lazdowsky finished with 14 points. Elijah Rosenthal and Nick Hornung each scored eight points.

As far as off-campus events this week, The Misericordia swim teams competed in the MAC championship meet. Jason Winters had a great weekend as he broke school records in both the 500-yard freestyle and 1650-yard freestyle. Jonus Gurski also had a big weekend for the men’s swim team as he finished second place in both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke.

For the women’s swim team, Junior Camryn Hubric had a huge meet as she captured two individual MAC titles in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle, setting school records in both.

The women’s team finished fourth in overall team standing and the men’s team finished fifth in overall team standings.