Adelphi women's basketball hopes it finishes what it started

Sade Jackson believed this would be the year for the Adelphi women's basketball team.

Jessica Kitrys simply thought, "Why not?"

After experiencing a winning season in 2012-13 for the first time in their collegiate careers, both seniors had reason to be optimistic heading into this season.

"We came in with a certain mentality at the beginning of the season," Kitrys said Tuesday. "It was time to prove the hard work we put in and now it is showing."

Indeed, things have changed. With Jackson and Kitrys leading the way, Adelphi (14-4, 8-4) is off to its best start since 2001. Heading into last night's game at Franklin Pierce, Kitrys was averaging 18.9 points and 6.6 rebounds and Jackson was averaging 14.1 points and 5.9 rebounds.

With the wins comes a catch, however.

"I feel like we have a target on our back now and we can't afford to take games or plays off," said Jackson, who surpassed 1,000 career points last Saturday.

But that's more than fine as far as Jackson is concerned.

"It makes me happy, knowing that teams want to beat you and it makes you want to play harder," Jackson said. "This is the best we've done so far in the four years I've been here. It ranks at the top, but we're not done yet."