By Charlie Wolfson, news correspondent
The Northeastern women’s basketball team extended their losing streak to six games on Thursday, Dec. 1, with a 66-63 overtime loss at Solomon Court to the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Unlike the first five games in this skid, in which the Huskies lost by an average of 21.8 points, this one was close to the bitter end.
Northeastern held a 32-23 lead at halftime, and looked to be in control. This lead was accumulated largely thanks to a size advantage inside, one which head coach Kelly Cole sought to exploit with senior center Francesca Sally. Sally recorded a season-high 23 points, leading the team in scoring.
“I think she was going aggressive at the basket,” Cole said. “That’s something we’ve been working with her on. I thought we had a really good matchup in the paint and she was turning and going to the basket — they were playing us one-on-one, and she was attacking.”
The nine-point halftime lead dissipated in the third quarter, as UNH got to the basket with greater ease. It was down to five at the end of the third, and the game was within three points or fewer for almost the entirety of the fourth quarter.
Cole was not pleased with the way her team unsuccessfully tried to maintain their lead in the second half.
“I’m disappointed tonight in how we held on in the second half,” she said. “We gave up points we shouldn’t have given up. We made it way too easy for their bigs inside.”
Despite the lead shrinking throughout the second half, it momentarily seemed that the Huskies would escape with a victory when sophomore guard Jess Genco stole UNH’s inbound pass with under 10 seconds left, and was intentionally fouled with seven seconds left.
Northeastern had a two-point lead and was headed to the free throw line. Genco sunk the first shot, but missed the second. The Wildcats grabbed the rebound and, with no timeouts remaining, had seven seconds to get the ball up the floor and attempt a three point shot to tie. Kristen Anderson furiously dribbled down the court and found an open Brittney Lai, who drained a three pointer as the buzzer sounded, sending the game to overtime. Lai scored a game-high 26 points for UNH.
The Huskies seemed out of sorts in overtime, and trailed throughout the extra period. Sally and sophomore forward Gabby Giacone, who were Northeastern’s two leading scorers, each came up empty in overtime — Northeastern’s seven points were all scored by junior guard Claudia Ortiz.
When it came to breaking down what went wrong on the final play of regulation, there were a couple different viewpoints.
“I think we executed the things that we wanted to,” Cole said. “Clearly, that shot going in to put it into overtime, we’re going to go back and look at that and say, ‘Oh, we could have done this, or we could have done that.’ But this is the first time with a young team that we’ve been in this situation, and we drew things up on the board, we called timeouts, we asked them to execute certain things and I think they did a nice job.”
Sally had thoughts of her own as to what went awry in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter.
“When Jess was shooting her free throws, after she got fouled on the previous play, I think a lot of us relaxed and in our heads said, ‘Well that’s game over,’ because they didn’t have much time left,” Sally said. “I think that was where we failed to execute. We relaxed too much, and we didn’t know time and score. That’s a lucky shot, to say the least, but we definitely should have fouled someone before they even got to the shot or at least contested the shot harder. Jess executed by getting the steal and getting fouled, but we failed to execute on the following play.”
Despite losing their last six games, the team is staying the course and trying to remain positive.
“I would say probably four out of those six teams have been really, really good teams, if not five out of six,” Cole said. “UNH is a solid team. They’re a good fundamental team. They don’t make a tremendous amount of mistakes. The other teams we’ve played are fantastic teams.”
Sally concurred with her coach, adding that the team is learning a lot, even when the scoreboard doesn’t favor them.
“I think we’re taking the losses, learning from them, and going forward—getting ready for conference,” she said. “Once it gets to a place where chemistry is good, and everybody knows their role on the court, we can go from there.”
The Huskies take on the University of Maine on Dec. 7 and Michigan State University on Dec. 18.
Photo courtesy Jim Pierce, Northeastern Athletics
