By Joe Rubin

As the Huskies go yet another week without a win, they struggle to hold on to that precious fourth spot in the America East.

Northeastern appeared to turn up the heat in their last home game of the season, as they played hard and controlled the start of the game, but seemed to lose the panache that so thoroughly infected their team only two weeks ago.

“We were ready to play the first five minutes and the last five minutes, [but] that’s it,” said Northeastern coach Willette White.

A misleading first half kept the Huskies in it, as they took early leads, and held Binghamton at bay with their talent. It caught up to them as Binghamton bounced back, though, tying the game at 30 before the break.

The second half played consistent until the Bearcats decided to go on a 12-0 run that gave them a 10-point advantage and was the spark that ignited their fire, burning the Huskies for the win.

As they appeared for the last five to seven minutes of play, the Dogs decided to come back, using an impressive press defense cutting the Bearcats lead to three, 73-70 with a little over a minute left. That was as close as they came; Binghamton took the rest of the game as they hit seven out of eight from the line, while Northeastern only hit one of their last four shots, resulting in a final score of 80-73.

Faced against undefeated conference-leader Maine, who had not lost since playing Holy Cross on Dec. 28, the women’s basketball team did their best.

“Maine was clicking on all six cylinders,” said White, “we didn’t get after it the way we needed to.”

From the first second Maine dominated the ball, as they took the first six points of the game and were up 22-4 with about eight minutes left in the first half. Northeastern put everything aside and staged a comeback, and went on a 15-5 run to bring Northeastern within eight. Although an impressive run against the top defense in the conference, the damage was done. The half ended with Maine holding a 31-20 advantage, Northeastern turning the ball over 15 times, and shooting a horrible 27.8 percent from the floor.

Maine took the second half as they did the first: hard and strong. An 18-5 run led them to the final 60-45 outcome. The Huskies were held at astounding lows for the season, as no player scored in double-digits while shooting 31 percent from the field.

Looking at a four-game losing streak, which followed a four game winning streak, fans wonder where the team will go now. With two games left, both on the road, and barely holding on to the America East spot, which team will show up?

“It’s crunch time,” said White, “got to find whatever it is you need to get back in it.”