It’s becoming a deadly game of pick-your-poison for opponents of the women’s basketball team.
If junior forward Kim Carr finds herself in a one-on-one match up, she’ll make the opposition pay, as she did in Wednesday night’s 56-53 win at Rhode Island, where she scored 22 points.
But if Carr finds herself double-teamed, which was the case Saturday in a 62-51 win at Stony Brook, the Huskies showed they can still be dangerous from the perimeter, with co-captains Ashlee Feldman and Kendra Walton combining for 29 points, shooting a combined 6-of-13 from beyond the arc.
“Stony Brook did a nice job taking [Carr] away,” said head coach Daynia La-Force Mann. “We still have a great outside perimeter shooting team and the perimeter players did a nice job,” she said.
The Huskies’ strong perimeter play coupled with a suffocating defense and important contributions from the bench helped them extend their winning streak to two games at Pritchard Gym in Stony Brook, N.Y.
“The win was a result of the defensive effort,” La-Force Mann said. “The team is committed to playing defense after our first four games of giving up over 70 points. We’re working hard to fix the mistakes in our zone defense. I’m very proud of the girls’ commitment to defense.”
Northeastern held Stony Brook (0-7) to no field goals for the first eight minutes of the game and led 8-4. However, the Huskies ran into trouble with fouls and turnovers and the Seawolves went on a 17-2 run to grab a 21-10 lead with 8:10 left in the half.
“Both teams were getting a feel for each other and finding their tempo and their style of play,” La-Force Mann said. “We took some good shots in the first couple minutes of play,” she said.
With several of the Huskies’ starters in foul trouble, Stony Brook was in a position to completely pull away. But Northeastern’s bench stepped up to cut the Huskies’ deficit to 30-28 at half.
“[Our bench] was huge,” Feldman said. “Kim got into foul trouble, but [sophomore forward] Mia Mayberry really stepped up. Whenever Kim goes out at the top of the 3-2 there’s a drop off, but with Mia there was no drop off. She was in there getting tips and deflections and finished on offense.”
Mayberry finished with six points and two of the Huskies’ 15 steals on the day. La-Force Mann also praised the work of sophomore guard Taryn Christian and freshman guard Dani Iervolino. Christian finished with five points while effectively running the offense in relief of sophomore guard Jasmine Crew. Iervolino hit a three-pointer with 11:18 left in the second half to extend Northeastern’s lead to 46-35. Freshman guard Kashaia Cannon hit both of her shots off the bench and finished with five points.
The Huskies (2-4) started the second half on a 10-0 run lead by two three-pointers from Feldman. The senior guard finished with a game high 17 points. Stony Brook scored five straight points to pull within three but the Huskies answered with a 13-0 run and led 51-35 with 8:22 left and emerged with the win, shooting 13-of-27, (48.1 percent) in the second half.
“We’re showing some growth with the younger players. This year is going to be a transition year with a lot of building,” La-Force Mann said. “It’s very rewarding to me as a coach to see [the younger players] pick it up so early in the season,” she said.
Walton finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three steals. Crew had six points, four assists and four boards.
Guards Misha Horsey and Joia Daniels finished with 15 and 13 points respectively for Stony Brook.
The Huskies will look to continue their strong defensive play when the team travels to Durham, N.H. Sunday to take on New Hampshire (1-5), another America East team, at 1 p.m.
“We’re a completely different team on defense,” Feldman said. “We’re pointing and talking [on defense]. We decided instead of expanding our 3-2 defense, we’re going to sink it in and box out to get more rebounds. All we’ve been doing at practice is workng on defense and it’s been so much better.”
