December 3
This week the review covers career high’s from Mackenzie Chatfield, Olivia Williams, Ritorya Tamilo and Emme Shearer and in men’s action a season best from Tafara Gapare.
We start with Shearer who is quickly making every post a winner right now.
The former Westlake Girls High and Harbour wing was in rare scoring form at the weekend as Portland went 3-0 at the Nuggets Classic in Reno. Named West Coast Conference Player of the Week, Shearer scored 21 against Southern Utah, 18 against Central Michigan followed by a career best 26 against Nevada. Those 26 points carried her to 1,223 career points, up to 9th on the all-time list of Kiwi Women’s NCAA Division I scorers edging past Tegan Graham (Colgate Uni 2016-20, BYU 2020-22) and Micaela Cocks (University of Oregon Ducks, 2006-10).
Mackenzie Chatfield made career highs in points (20) and assists (8) as Western Kentucky extended its winning start to the season to six games with a 92-62 win against Tennessee State.
Olivia Williams also had a career best as UC Irvine lost 65-62 at New Mexico. Williams knocked down her fourth triple of the game to tie proceedings at 62-62 only for the Lobos to reply in kind on the buzzer.
The junior guard was 7 from 14 overall and 4 from 6 from deep in making 20 points.
Ritorya Tamilo maintained her strong start to her collegiate career at Hawaii. The freshman centre had a season high 17 points (7/11FG) to go with 7 rebounds and 3 blocks in the 50-47 come from behind win against Fresno State.
Ella Brow scored a season high 14 points to accompany 4 rebounds and 5 assists as Southern Methodist proved too strong for Arkansas – Pine Bluff winning 82-58. Brow nailed 4 from 7 threes in 23 minutes of action.
Dani Bayes scored 10 points as Boise State edged past Illinois State 79-76.
Cantabrian Kavanah Lene finally saw minutes for Montana and posted a nice line of 6 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal on debut in the 107-56 win against Evergreen State.
Also posting her first collegiate points was Rebecca Moors who converted both of her scoring attempts for 5 points in Hawaii’s 70-49 loss to UCLA.
NCAA Division I Men
Tafara Gapare scored in double figures for the eighth time in his college career, but for the first time with Maryland. Gapare scored 19 points as Maryland beat Bucknell 91-67 and followed that with 9 points and 8 rebounds in an easy 96-58 win against Alcorn.
Ben Gold filled the stats line in just 22 minutes of action as Marquette easily accounted for Western Carolina 94-62 to make it eight wins on the bounce to open the season. Gold finished with 12 points, 4 boards, 4 assists a block and a steal.
With 81 appearances at Marquette Gold is up to 24th on the all-time list of Men’s NCAA Division I appearances by a Kiwi moving past Tony Rampton (Iowa State University, 1995-99).
Aniwaniwa Tait Jones rounded out a productive first five weeks of the season in scoring 10 points as UC San Diego won a one sided contest against La Verne 109-33. Tait Jones has scored 136 points in 8 games (all starts) at 17.0ppg, he is now just 8 points shy of 600 career points for UCSD.
In his second start of the season freshman Nic Book came up with a double of 8 points and 8 rebounds plus a couple of blocks and a steal despite Southern Carolina Upstate being upstaged by Coastal Carolina going down 73-51.
Mason Whittaker scored a couple of points – his first of the season – as American University defeated Notre Dame of Maryland 97-52.
LACEY LOWDOWN 