Put it this way – to see the first example of anything being in rhythm on Saturday at Northeastern University’s Matthews Arena, you didn’t have to show up until the start of halftime. But after that, the crowd couldn’t help but be roped in.
Maybe it was that a group of around 20 grade-school girls from Brewster were jumping through hoops to get the crowd reeled in. But after the Brewster Bayside Skippers performed their nationally-recognized jump rope routine at halftime, the fans were treated to the show they came to see. And there were even an extra five minutes of overtime to keep the show going, fittingly making up for the first half.
The Boston University women’s basketball team took its super-sized – in length, importance and rivalry – America East game versus the Northeastern by a score of 68-60 Saturday afternoon. The Terriers (8-7, 3-3 America East) rode senior guard Katie Terhune’s 26-point effort, including nine in overtime, as they knocked off the crosstown-rival Huskies (9-6, 3-3).
After the game, BU coach Margaret McKeon said she was especially pleased with the team’s progress throughout the contest as well as its play on the defensive end.
“I thought we didn’t play real efficient offensively,” McKeon said. “We did everything we needed to do defensively, but I think we worked out our kinks later in the game … I think that was the main thing why we won, because they had trouble scoring against our zone or our man.”
Shooting 39.3 percent in the first frame, the Terriers took a 29-26 lead into the locker room at the half. The Huskies only shot 35.7 percent from the field themselves. Besides failing to find the bottom of the net, the two teams also committed a collective 25 turnovers in the opening period, making for one sloppy half.
The Huskies’ leading scorer, Maralene Zwarich, then decided to lead the Huskies back. It seemed that every time Northeastern needed a shot, Zwarich would hit it, and leave her hand in the air for a few seconds after. She was one of four Huskies to score in double figures on the day, as they slowly made their way back in the second half after being down by as many as 11.
With a little over a minute left in the game, Zwarich took a pass and shot from the baseline, seemingly in one motion, to put the Huskies up 51-49. Terhune made two foul shots on the Terrier end, and the Huskies took the ball back to their side with around a minute to work with.
But with 33 seconds left, junior forward Larissa Parr knocked the ball free, and forward Marisa Moseley picked it up. The senior passed the ball out, and after the Terriers set up their reliable half-court offense, they got the ball to Katie Terhune.
Terhune put the Terriers ahead with 16 seconds remaining with a long jumper from the top of the key, but Terhune’s toe was on the line and the shot counted for just two. 53-51, BU.
With the clock against them, the Huskies went to work. That work, of course, was praying to the basketball gods. There’s no better way to explain senior guard Joi Jefferson’s last-second shot. Phil Mickelson couldn’t lob a ball this well.
Jefferson drove around with the control of a soccer mom on a cell phone. And even though she drove into a tree – BU senior Marisa Moseley put all of her 6-foot 2-inch frame straight up over Jefferson’s 5-foot-9 – the result was much better. A shot that might have changed the flight path of airplanes went up from only about eight feet away, and went in to tie the game at 53 and send the Terriers into overtime for the first time this year.
But the Terriers went on a 10-2 run to quickly start the overtime period, thanks in large part to Terhune’s nine, and closed the deal thanks to the team’s 10-12 mark from the line in the extra frame.
“We never had a doubt in our minds that we were going to win the game,” said junior forward Larissa Parr. “That was a fluke shot, and we knew that nothing was ever going to happen again. We were confident the whole time.”
Parr, who McKeon wanted to “get in the flow of things,” upped her minutes to 23 on Saturday from just six against the University of Maine last Wednesday. Scoring five points and pulling down five rebounds, Parr “came up big,” McKeon said.
“I thought that we could’ve used [Parr] a little more in the Maine game,” McKeon said, referring to the team’s 73-65 loss to the Black Bears. “So I said that I’m going to learn from that one, and make sure it doesn’t happen again … I tried to get Larissa in the flow of things, because she’s a winner – a proven winner in high school, and a proven winner here.”
Junior forward – and Parr-roomate – Adrienne Norris provided additional support, scoring 12 points and pulling down seven rebounds. Norris also shot 5-6 from the foul line, including a perfect 4-4 in overtime.
The Terriers also came off their leash for the first time all season, in terms of tenacity, according to McKeon. They even broke from their staple matchup zone defense to match up with the Huskies man-to-man, forcing 27 turnovers on the game and scoring 28 points off of the cough-ups.
“[We] were going to do whatever it takes to win, and I think going man-to-man really helped down the stretch and put them off-guard,” McKeon said. “[Hustle] was what we’ve been looking for all year.”