By: Justin Clear-Vekinis, News Correspondent
The women’s basketball team exhibited poor shooting percentages in last night’s 60-54 loss to Dartmouth College, shooting a mere 24 percent from beyond the 3-point line and 33 percent from the field.
The Huskies, which fell to 2-4 on the season, managed to put up a fight and keep the game close, but from the beginning, things were looking sour.
“When you’re playing a good team like Dartmouth, you’ve got to be ready,” head coach Daynia La-Force Mann said. “We only managed three points in the first seven minutes. We weren’t ready to play a team like that. We didn’t adjust our playing style and offensive press to win the game against them.”
Sophomore forward Rachael Pecota led the scoring with 17 points, followed closely by classmate and forward Afreyea Tolbert with 15 points, and senior guard Tiffany Crew, who tallied 11 points.
Crew also managed to lead the Huskies with eight rebounds, followed closely by Pecota, who grabbed seven rebounds, and senior Mia Mayberry who pulled in six. But it was not enough, as the Huskies were outrebounded by the Big Green 38-35.
The Huskies found themselves in foul trouble, allowing the Big Green to take 21 shots from the charity stripe in comparison to Northeastern’s nine. Despite the advantage, Dartmouth couldn’t capitalize and converted just nine of those attempts.
La-Force Mann said she was displeased with the team’s effort on the defensive end.
“We allowed them too many chances to get back and score, as well as in fouls,” La-Force Mann said.
The Huskies fared better against Army Monday, winning 65-56 in the game held at Westpoint Academy in New York.
Junior forward Kashaia Cannon scored a career-high 24 points to lead the offensive attack while adding six rebounds and two steals.
“[Cannon] shot the ball tremendously,” La-Force Mann said. “We’ve been working really hard on our shooting and she had a lot of confidence. The team played well and was confident in her, so they found ways to get the ball open for her and she was able to knock down shots.”
Pecota said it was extremely important for Cannon to step up, because the team often distributes the work load.
“Each game will call on different people,” Pecota said. “Sometimes, the people who are usually leading the team aren’t having a great night, and we’ll need others to step up. [Cannon’s scoring] brought the team together and everyone was rallying around it, so it was very crucial to the game.”
Cannon went 5-6 from the free throw line and 5-9 beyond the arc. As a team, the Huskies shot 40 percent from the field and 50 percent from the 3-point line.
“We’re really looking to keep up that scoring percentage,” La-Force Mann said. “We’ve spent a lot of time working on improving our shot and it proves that we can shoot well when we’re confident.”
Another junior classmate and guard Jamie Conroy chipped in 13 points and eight rebounds. Freshman guard Sierra Mendenhall added a career-high six points for the Huskies.
Pecota attributed the win to defense and noted the use of sharing the ball on offense.
“We used our 21 defense again, which is our full-press defense,” Pecota said. “Army couldn’t handle it and we kept it up through out the game to solidify the win. We also made extra passes on the offensive end, which helped get points on the board.”
The Huskies will host Boston University Monday at 7 p.m., and La-Force Mann said the team needs to play with more focus.
“We lacked effort against Dartmouth, we lacked fundamentals,” she said. “We won at Army because we were working together. We’re a young team and each game teaches us a valuable lesson on how to play and how to win. We’re learning and we’re resilient and we’re going to rebound from it.”
