Following a 14-point victory at home, the Boston University women’s basketball team will hit the road to face the United States Naval Academy on Thursday evening.
Despite a solid showing in the Patriot League, the Terriers (7-13, 5-4 Patriot League) have been unable to string together quality wins. Since beating eighth-place College of the Holy Cross and ninth-place Lehigh University back-to-back to kick off Patriot League play, the Terriers have yet to win consecutive games. BU will face a daunting challenge against second-seeded Navy (15-5, 8-1 Patriot League).
Meanwhile, Navy is currently on an eight-game winning streak, which it has kept up since its loss in its first game of Patriot League play. Navy has been 8-0 at home this season and will look to keep up its perfect home record.
This will be the second time the Terriers and Navy face each other this season. In their previous meeting, Navy forced 26 turnovers, including a crucial one in the final seconds, which secured a close 62-59 win at Case Gym.
Navy had four players scoring in double-digits, while senior guard Sarah Hope starred for BU, scoring 21 points and matched her career-high with seven 3-pointers.
“I didn’t think that we played our best ball last time with 26 turnovers and us only getting 11 points out of [junior center] Sophie [Beaudry],” said BU head coach Katy Steding. “I didn’t think we took advantage of our natural strengths. We’ve been working on some different things to try to take advantage of what we do well in order to maximize our potential in this next game.”
Beaudry will be key for the Terriers’ success. The Chambly, Quebec native struggled in the two teams’ last meeting, shooting 4-13 and had seven turnovers, but she has been an absolute force in the last five games, averaging 21.2 points and shooting a remarkable 61.4 percent from the field.
“We’re trying to get her on the move, so it’s a little bit more difficult to double her, although teams are still putting two and three people on her,” Steding said. “It’s just hard [to guard] what we have: a player with her mobility stepping through the team and not just trying to hold down one spot.”
With Beaudry’s recent dominance, the rest of the team will need to step up to secure the win, Steding said.
“[Beaudry] is an excellent passer,” Steding said. “It’s up to the rest of us to fill in some blanks in terms of balancing our scoring out a little bit and taking some of that pressure off of her to have to score so much.”
On the defensive end, the Terriers’ biggest challenge will be Navy’s versatility.
“They do a great job of spreading you out, making you play five people out on the perimeter,” Steding said. “We did a decent job [last time] of keeping up with them at the 3-point line. We want to do a better job of making sure that they don’t have open looks to the basket, but they also did a great job of attacking off the bounce if we were out of our stance or just not taking care of business.”
One of Navy’s biggest offensive threats is its outside shooting, as it is the best 3-point shooting team in the Patriot League, highlighted by guard Hannah Fenske and senior Sarita Condie, who are shooting 46.9 percent and 47.4 percent from deep, respectively.
“They’re really balanced,” Steding said. “They have scorers who score in bunches, but it can be any one of them on a given night.”
In their last meeting, BU held Navy to 8-31 shooting from deep. The Terriers plan to continue to build on that defensive effort.
When asked about the single most important key to victory, Steding had one thing in mind: “taking care of the ball.”
