Syracuse Women's Basketball Survives Exhibition Game vs LeMoyne

The Orange pulled out a close win in coach Legette-Jack's debut.

The era of Head Coach Felisha Legette-Jack began for Syracuse Women's basketball as they took on LeMoyne in an exhibition game at the JMA Wireless dome. It started out with a win, albeit a close one as the Orange squeaked out a 73-70 victory on Thursday.

If Thursday's game was any indication, the two key focal points for the Orange this season will be Asia Strong, Teisha Hyman, and Dyaisha Fair. Hyman finished the game with 12 points, three assists, and five rebounds.

For Fair and Strong, this was their first game being an Orange. Strong, the graduate transfer from Wichita State had a solid debut finishing with 14 points, 14 rebounds, and two blocks. Fair has a lot of familiarity with Jack as she played for her at Buffalo for three seasons. Fair led the Orange with 19 points, while also showing off her ability to be floor general, dishing out eight assists. 

After the game, Fair spoke about how playing for Jack the past three seasons will be very beneficial to her helping lead the team.

“It gives me the opportunity to lead the best way I can. Knowing her system and how she operates and how she wants things in my position, I can lead them to know the same, and try to get them on the same page as me so that they can be on the same page as her.” Fair said, “Because if I lead by example by doing it and saying it, they can just get on board. But as you can see we have to do more of that and just get better. So by me being able to be of course a few years into the system, it just helps me deep.”

The Orange ended up defeating the Dolphins by a final score of 73-70. As evidenced by the final score, the Dolphins did not go out without putting up a fight. The Division 2 Dolphins did not look the least bit intimidated jumping to a 19-13 lead on the Orange after the first quarter. The Dolphins kept up the pace throughout the game. It was not until there was 10 seconds left in the game, did the Dolphins slow down, losing by three and failing to foul the Orange to extend the quarter.

Despite the victory, the Orange have items to clean up before their regular season opener against Stony Brook. As a team, the Orange shot a putrid 35 percent form the free throw line on 6 of 17 shooting. Not only was the percentage bad, but there also were not enough attempts. Coach Jack knows this type of performance isn't going to cut it against a Stony Brook team who finished last season with an excellent record of 23-6.

“Stony Brook is light years ahead of the team we just played. All we have is a few more days to get prepared for our next opponent and we will be,” said coach Jack.

Stony Brook will come to play at the Dome this Monday at 3:30 p.m. for the Orange's first regular season game of the season.

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