By Owen Pence, news correspondent
Conference play continued to treat the Northeastern (4-18) women’s basketball team poorly, as losses to the University of Delaware (12-11) on Thursday and Towson University (10-14) on Sunday extended the Huskies losing streak to seven games.
A light in the dark, senior guard A’lece Mark scored her 1,000th career point on Sunday. Off a steal and layup in the first half, she became the 18th Husky to ever reach this achievement.
“She’s been a consistent scorer for us, not just this year but her entire career here,” Cole said. “She continues to be a spark for us offensively.”
The week started out on a promising note for Head Coach Kelly Cole’s squad, as NU jumped out to a 31-27 lead against the Delaware Blue Hens at halftime, behind scoring contributions from six different Huskies. Senior guard Amencie Mercier and Mark led the Husky charge with 19 first-half points between them.
Things went downhill in the second frame for NU, with a late 9-1 Delaware run terminating the Huskies chances, en route to a 70-61 final.
Despite the losing effort, NU’s bench dominated, outscoring Delaware’s reserves 16-0. Overall, the Huskies shot 48 percent from the field and 53 percent from three.
“We took the right shots,” Cole said in a postgame interview with GoNU.com. “Our ability hasn’t changed; tonight what we did differently was we moved the ball.”
Defense is what ultimately led to the Husky downfall, as Northeastern yielded double-figure scoring totals to four different Blue Hens, headlined by senior forward Joy Caracciolo’s 18 points and 10 rebounds. Delaware only attempted four 3-pointers on the night, instead choosing to exploit Northeastern’s interior defense. Unsurprisingly, the Huskies were outscored 36-20 on points in the paint, unable to find an answer for the Blue Hens size down low.
Sunday afternoon’s matchup against the Towson Tigers featured a different style of play, despite producing the same result, a 72-64 defeat.
While Northeastern was able to sure up its interior play, outscoring Towson 24-18 in the paint, it was the Tigers breakneck pace that led to the Huskies demise. For the entirety of the afternoon, Towson employed a stifling full-court press for which the Huskies had no answer. The Tigers were awarded for their aggressiveness, forcing multiple 10-second violations and recording 10 steals, all while managing to stay away from any foul trouble. Towson ended up scoring 27 points off turnovers that day, a number that Cole marked up to sloppiness and a lack of execution.
“The press has not been a problem for us all year long,” Cole said. “When we actually ran our plays the way we were supposed to run them, we had three-on-twos and four-on-threes. Tonight we just didn’t feel like executing.”
Part of the problem was Towson junior guard Dominique Johnson, whose five steals and 27 points were both game highs. Johnson (4 of 11 from three and 10 of 21 from the field) led a Tiger first-half shooting barrage that included six 3-pointers (54.5 percent from behind the arc) and 38 total points, good for an eleven-point advantage by halftime.
“What do you do when a team comes out and shoots out of their mind in the first half?” Cole asked. “The fact that we were only down 11 at halftime was a godsend because of how they shot and how we turned over the ball.”
The Huskies came out of the locker room with a spark, opening the second half on a 5-0 run behind inspired play from freshman forward Loren Lassiter and freshman guard Maureen Taggart, who scored a career-high 14 points on the afternoon.
The momentum shift was short-lived, however, as Towson quickly re-extended its lead to eleven with 14:51 remaining.
A 3-pointer by junior guard Kazzidy Stewart got Northeastern back to within seven with 47.5 seconds left to play, but the Huskies wouldn’t score again, losing for the seventh straight time in three weeks.
Despite back-to-back losing efforts, junior forward Samantha DeFreese continued her impressive stretch of play, adding two more double-doubles to her season total of five, including a 21-point performance at the Cabot Center on Sunday. NU travels next to North Carolina for a faceoff with the University of North Carolina Wilmington Seahawks (8-14) on Sunday, Feb.15.
Photo courtesy Jim Pierce, Northeastern Athletics
