Riding off consecutive wins against North Dakota State and Harvard, the women’s basketball team put away former American East rival, Hartford, in their first meeting since December, 2009. 

The Huskies started the game strong by forcing turnovers, stealing the ball and getting most of the offensive rebounds presented to them. However, the height of Hartford’s (0-11) senior forward Lawrencia Moten was hard to beat in the paint. 

NU’s defense was nearly impenetrable as the Hawks couldn’t score their first points until five minutes into the first quarter. 

An incredible fingertip pass by NU senior forward Ayanna Dublin to sophomore forward Alexis Hill for a layup showed great awareness by the Husky offense and was a great ending to a quarter, where the Huskies led 15-12. 

“The connection we have with this team this year has been super strong and it has helped us offensively in finding each other as well as defensively,” said junior guard Stella Clark.

The Huskies defense proved superior once again in the second quarter as the first points for Hartford came six minutes in, at which point the Huskies had claimed a large lead of 24-14.

A triple by sophomore guard Kendall Currence put the nail in the coffin for the Hawks as they were outscored 16-7 in the second quarter and ended the half down 31-19. 

A rough start to the third quarter for the Huskies was quickly saved as Clark went for back-to-back triples, and followed with a fast break layup off an assist from Hill to continue to pad NU’s ever-increasing lead, now 42-27. 

The quarter ended on a miraculously-made sideways shot by NU freshman guard Mossi Staples which pushed NU’s lead to 51-27.

The fourth quarter was a great opportunity for NU’s freshmen to get some extra minutes as they accounted for four out of the five on the floor for a majority of the frame. Although the quarter was lopsided for NU, losing the quarter 9-20, the young Huskies did what they needed to secure the victory as the game ended 60-47.

“I think the finals break was good for us, we had a good week of practice. We have a lot of work to continue to do but we are starting to do some really amazing things. We have another break between now and the game against Maine and we are going to be doing a lot to continue to be steady and work on a lot of things to polish our game” said head coach Kelly Cole. 

Clark led in points (17) and rebounds (6), while senior guard Shannon Todd had 11 points to her name and Hill had an impressive 5 steals and 7 assists. 

The Huskies improve the season to 3-6 and will face Maine on the road Dec. 21 at 1 p.m.