By Aren LeBrun, News Staff
The Northeastern women’s basketball team failed to close out its non-conference slate on a positive note, falling 75-66 to the visiting Albany Great Danes on Sunday afternoon.
“We kind of got into a little bit of a shooting slump,” said head coach Daynia La-Force said. “We weren’t making as many threes as we normally do. We were passing up a lot of open shots.”
Jewel Tunstull continued her strong senior campaign for Northeastern, notching her seventh double-double of the season with 23 points and 13 rebounds, both team-highs.
“Her play really opens things up for our other players, our other guards along the perimeter,” La-Force said. “Once they become a threat, it opens things back up for Jewel to score inside.”
Junior guard and co-captain A’lece Mark joined Tunstull in double figures, scoring 18 points, to go with her 5 assists and 3 steals. Sophomore guard Kazzidy Stewart also chipped in 10 points off the bench.
Though the Huskies outscored the Great Danes 28 to 24 from the charity stripe and by 15 points from long range, no one was able to stop junior center Megan Craig, who poured in a career-high 33 points and grabbed 8 rebounds for Albany.
“We weren’t getting stops on the defensive end,” La-Force said. “It puts pressure on you when you need to make sure you are matching them point by point offensively, and we just couldn’t do that.”
Montagne stroked her only three of the contest to open the scoring for the Huskies. The teams traded baskets early until Craig broke off on a 6-0 run to pull ahead 19-14. After three collective free throws from Tunstull and Mark, Albany heated up, stringing together a 12-2 run to jump out to a 31-19 lead.
Northeastern responded with a 5-1 run of its own. Mark scored a layup to end the half, sending her team into the locker room down seven points, 39-32.
Both teams began the second half cold, as neither could string together baskets on back-to-back possessions. A three-pointer from junior guard and co-captain Amencie Mercier sparked what became a 9-2 run that cut Albany’s lead to just 1 point.
The Great Danes responded in a big way, scoring eight quick points to extend the margin to 55-48.
Foul trouble eventually prevented the Huskies from mounting a comeback, with four starters—Mark, Mercier, DeFreese, Montagne—fouling out in the final minutes. The game ended on Mark’s 5th foul, and Albany drained two free throws to seal a 75-66 victory.
“We can’t make the same mistakes we made during this game and earlier this season,” Tunstull said. “We just have to play together.”
Northeastern struggled from the field, shooting just 36 percent from the floor and 29 percent from beyond the three-point line. Turnovers were also an issue, as the Huskies gave the ball away 22 times on the night. Poor three-point percentage and ball control are both uncharacteristic for Northeastern, picked third in the CAA preseason poll by league coaches. The team entered the contest shooting 32 percent on three-point attempts and averaging 15 turnovers per game on the season.
“We need to be intense going forward,” Mark said. “We need to play everything like it’s the championship game.”
While it is always preferred to end the non-conference schedule with a win, Coach La-Force and her players understand the real season begins now, with the first conference game scheduled for Thursday against the UNCW.
“We need to get the ball in to [Tunstull], we need to run our offense through her,” La-Force said. “I think our sophomore class has to become a lot more confident with the ball, and I think that they will.”
The Huskies begin their conference schedule with a two-game road trip, first traveling to UNCW to take on the Seahawks and then Towson on Sunday to battle the Tigers.
