LOUDONVILLE, NY—Siena Women's Basketball will put its four-game winning streak to the test Thursday night when it visits first-place Quinnipiac in a pivotal Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) matchup. Tipoff from M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, CT, is set for 6 p.m.
Steve Lennox, Diane Nolan, and Billy Mecca will call the action on ESPN+, while Austin Barach will make his WVCR 88.3 FM debut alongside Steve Amedio. Tickets, live stats, and courtside X updates are available via the corresponding links.
With six league games remaining, Siena's path to the MAAC Championship Tournament is straightforward: one more win—or one Rider loss—will secure a berth. The Saints currently sit fourth in the conference at 9-5, one game behind Merrimack in the race for third place. Rider, the first team outside the 10-team tournament field, trails Siena by six games at 3-11 and faces two teams currently in tournament position over its next two contests.
Freshman standout
Francesca Schiro continues to shine on both the conference and national stages. The Hillsborough, NJ, native was named U.S. Basketball Writers Association Co-Freshman of the Week after earning her league-leading seventh MAAC Rookie of the Week honor—tying her for the second-most in program history. Schiro has raised her scoring average to 17.7 points per game, ranking second in the MAAC and fourth nationally among freshmen. In conference play, she leads the league at 19.6 points per game.
Siena is also getting peak performances from
Nicole Melious and
Kaiya Rain Tucker. Melious is coming off a season-high 25-point outing at Manhattan on Feb. 8, her second 20-point game of the season, while knocking down four three-pointers for the third time in the last four games. Tucker recorded a career-high 23 points in the win, marking her sixth double-digit scoring game of the year and her first 20-point performance. The freshman has also posted three straight games with at least eight rebounds and multiple blocks in four of her last five contests.
Quinnipiac enters the matchup as one of the nation's hottest teams. Led by head coach Tricia Fabbri—one of the winningest active coaches in Division I—the Bobcats are 20-4 overall and a perfect 15-0 in MAAC play. Riding the fourth-longest active winning streak in the country (15 games), Quinnipiac ranks in the top 10 nationally in scoring defense (52.3 PPG), turnovers per game (11.2), and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.49). Jackie Grisdale leads a balanced scoring attack with 12.9 points per game, as six Bobcats average nine or more points.
Thursday's game marks the 26th meeting between Siena and Quinnipiac. Three of Siena's four all-time wins in the series have come in Hamden, including a 78–60 victory on Jan. 27, 2024. Last season's three-point loss to the Bobcats matched the smallest margin in the series, tying Siena's 63–60 win in Hamden on Feb. 21, 2021.
Following Thursday's matchup, the Saints will travel to North Andover, MA, for their second meeting of the season with Merrimack. Tipoff at Lawler Arena is set for 2 p.m.
