By Bailey Knecht, sports editor
“It was our first home game and we have a new coach, so it was huge to come out here and be effective and execute all of the things that we’ve been working on, everything that she’s been putting in,” junior forward Samantha DeFreese said. “We had some little ups and downs here and there, but we pulled it out and I think that goes to show for our hard work.”
The first half was high-paced on both ends of the court, and the score remained close throughout.
With 5:25 left in the half, sophomore center Francesca Sally scored her ninth point, surpassing her career-high of eight.
DeFreese notched 11 points on five of six shooting in the first half, including a dramatic and-1 play that put the Huskies up by four and made the crowd go wild. She also had eight rebounds in the first half.
In the last minute of the half, the Huskies went on a scoring rampage with the help of a pair of 3-pointers from junior guard Kazzidy Stewart. They closed out the half leading the Terriers 37-32.
Both teams came out aggressively in the second half, pushing the ball up the court at every chance. Senior captain guard Amencie Mercier scored an early three to put the Huskies up by eight, but BU responded with a few points of its own to tie up the game. BU’s senior forward Mollie McKendrick and redshirt junior guard Troi Melton led the comeback, each scoring six points early in the half.
Northeastern kept up the pressure, though, with another and-1 from DeFreese and another couple of 3-pointers from Stewart and junior guard Tiffany Montagne.
Going into the final four minutes of the game, the teams were deadlocked at 68.
The game picked up even more intensity in the final minutes with neither team letting up. With both teams past the foul limit, junior guard Clodagh Scannell notched some crucial free throws in the final minute to put BU up by three. Sally followed with one of her own for Northeastern to bring the score to 74-72 in favor of the Terriers.
Hundreds of Boston Public School students were packed into the stands as part of their annual “Field Day,” and the cheers from the kids were deafening at this point in the game.
With 16 seconds left, the pressure was on DeFreese, who was fouled on a shot. She sunk the first free throw with ease. The second clanked off the back of the rim and, luckily for the Huskies, into the hands of NU senior captain guard Tanisha Hopewell. Hopewell passed the ball to Sally, who scored on a layup to guarantee the win for Northeastern.
“We work so hard every day in practice,” DeFreese said. “We work on our moves that we do together, we work on getting the ball into the post. So for Fran to hit that shot, when it was going up, I don’t think anybody thought that it wasn’t going in. We see her work on that every day. She comes in to practice ready to work, so when it went up in the air, we knew it was going in.”
DeFreese earned a double-double on the afternoon with a final statline of 24 points, a new career-high, and 14 rebounds.
She praised the team’s ability to maintain its energy and positivity throughout the game.
“We have so much team chemistry at this point and every now and then you might get one or two people that kind of get low, but the whole point of a team is that we have everybody constantly picking each other up,” she said. “We see you’re a little low, that means we just gotta be that much higher to get you back to where you need to be, so we did that all game.”
On Tuesday, the Huskies didn’t have as much luck as they traveled to Rutgers and fell 74-60 to the Scarlet Knights.
Despite a close score throughout most of the first period, Rutgers went on a scoring run to go into the half leading by 10.
The Scarlet Knights continued their strong play into the second half, going on an 8-2 run right away. Montagne’s 22 points, including 14 in the second half, would not be enough to lead the Huskies to victory. DeFreese, the star of Friday’s game, contributed 13 points and five rebounds in the loss. Stewart notched a career-high six assists. As a team, Northeastern shot 36.7 percent and committed 22 turnovers in the loss.
The Huskies will return home this Saturday to take on Marist College at 2 p.m. Then they will prepare for Florida Atlantic University’s Thanksgiving Tournament in Boca Raton, Fla. starting Nov. 28.
Photo by Maria Amasanti
