For the second straight game, it was a tale of two halves for the Boston University women’s basketball team. Last Wednesday, the Terriers struggled in the first half against Brown University, but answered with a 21-4 run in the second half en route to a 59-38 victory.
Last night, the tables were turned on the Terriers (6-4), as they held a 42-38 lead at the break and led by as many as 11 points early in the second, only to watch Harvard University author a game-ending 26-7 run and grab a 72-62 win.
The Crimson (6-4) jumped out to a 12-9 lead on six early points from junior forward Katie Rollins. The Terriers followed with eight straight points, including guard Cheri Raffo’s only four points of the night. The senior tri-captain shot 2-of-16 from the field.
Harvard seized the momentum right back, ripping off an 11-1 run that included four of Emma Moretzsohn’s 12 points. But the Terriers regained the lead, and notched their biggest advantage of the night with five minutes left in the half after a layup by junior guard Amarachi Umez-Eronini (14 points, 6 steals).
With 1:40 left in the half, the Crimson cut the lead to two on a pull-up jumper from junior guard Emily Tay (12 points). BU point guard Christine Kinneary made a layup just before the buzzer to give the Terriers a 42-38 lead at the half.
BU increased its lead to 11 in the first four minutes of the second half. The stretch included four points from senior forward Kasey Devine (8 points, 4 rebounds) and three from junior forward Jesyka Burks-Wiley, who led the Terriers with 19 points.
Harvard cut the BU lead to six, but the Terriers extended it back to 10 on a jumper from Kinneary. After that, the game turned into the Lindsay Hallion Show. Hallion, Harvard’s senior captain, scored eight straight points in a minute-plus stretch starting at the 10:23 mark to jumpstart the Crimson’s shocking game-ending run. The guard also had three steals during that span.
“We basically gave [Hallion] three easy layups by turning the ball over,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg. “Her run really changed the whole momentum of the game.”
Hallion added two more points before the end of the game, finishing with a team-high 19 points. Despite Hallion’s run, the Terriers had a chance with five minutes left after an Umez-Eronini layup cut the deficit to three.
The Terriers sealed their own fate by shooting 0-of-7 from the field in the last five minutes. The team shot just 32.9 percent (23-of-70) for the game and 21.4 percent in the second half (6-of-28).
The Terriers played an undisciplined game, sending Harvard to the free-throw line 28 times. Hallion went 9-of-9 from the line as part of a 24-for-28 team effort. BU also turned the ball over 11 times in the second half.
“It was one of those nights where nothing seemed to go our way,” Greenberg said. “We didn’t rebound, we turned the ball over a lot in the second half and we fouled way too much. Our guards, in particular, gave up a lot of points by putting their guards on the line.
“We couldn’t hit a shot in the last 10 minutes, and it seemed like they couldn’t miss,” she added. “Sometimes you’re just off, and that’s what happened to our shooters [last night]. It wasn’t a lack of effort or a lack of caring — just a lack of execution.”