Junior Sarah Bendetti of Canton averaged 11.7 points for the St. Francis (N.Y.) women’s basketball team this winter. (Photo by Blue Vision Photography, courtesy of St. Francis, NY)
BROOKLYN – St. Francis (N.Y.) junior forward Sarah Benedetti of Canton helped the St. Francis women’s basketball team finish with a record of 19-11 this past winter. Nineteen wins in a single season is a program record for the Terriers.
Benedetti averaged 11.4 points and nailed 71 three-point shots for St. Francis, which qualified for the Northeast Conference (NEC) tournament. Bryant eliminated St. Francis with a 58-53 victory in the tournament quarterfinals. Benedetti had 12 points in the loss.
St. Francis finished with a record of 10-8 in the NEC, also a school record for most conference victories in a single season.
St. Francis won its second straight Battle of Brooklyn trophy beating local rival Long Island University-Brooklyn, 66-50 to close out the regular season. Benedetti finished with a game-high 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting, which included a school-record tying seven three-point shots in a single game.
Benedetti, a 5-foot-10 forward, was named the game’s most valuable player.
Long Island had a four-point lead early in the game when Benedetti drained her first three-point shot to cut the lead to 12-11 with 11:47 remaining in the first half. It ignited a 25-8 surge by St. Francis that put the Terriers in control. In the big run, St. Francis hit 9-of-11 shots from the floor and 7-of-8 from three-point range.
Benedetti had 11 points in the 25-8 run. Her seven three-point shots moved Bendetti into the No. 2 spot for career three-point shots in St. Francis history, surpassing Christine Cunningham with 191.
Benedetti had a season-high 28 points in a win over Robert Morris on February 24 with six three-point goals.
Bendetti graduated from Canton High in 2011. She was a four-time All-NCCC and a three-time All-State selection at Canton, where she set the school’s single season scoring record with 44 points in a 2010 Class S tournament win over Platt Tech of Milford. She graduated as the No. 2 leading scorer in school history with 1,653 points.
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