The first 15 minutes was a game of cat-and-mouse, but in the last 25, the mouse finally scurried away and never looked back.
Despite being down by just two with five minutes to go in the first half, the Boston University women’s basketball team could not overcome a scorching St. John’s University offense as the Terriers fell, 80-63, to the Red Storm on Saturday in Queens, N.Y.
The Red Storm (3-0) played the part of the mouse early as they jumped to an 8-0 lead two minutes into the contest. Sophomore forward Da’Shena Stevens, who was named to the Naismith Preseason Watch List before the season, scored six of those early points as a part of her 15-point and eight-rebound effort on the afternoon.
The Terriers (1-3) stayed resilient, however, as they outscored the Red Storm, 10-6, over the next six minutes to get the score as close as 14-10 with 12 minutes to go in the first.
The Red Storm and Terriers alternated 5-0 runs and continued to claw back and forth, resulting in a 24-22 St. John’s lead with five minutes left.
‘They definitely jumped out early, but it was nice to see our players respond,’ BU coach Kelly Greenberg said. ‘No one seemed to panic at that point.’
That was as close as BU would get for the rest of the contest as St. John’s finished the half by outscoring the Terriers, 14-5, giving the Red Storm a rather comfortable 38-27 lead heading into the locker room.
‘The game changed its complexion when they started pressing,’ Greenberg said. ‘We didn’t handle their pressure very well and we gave them some really nice looks at the baskets off our turnovers.’
The Red Storm continued its success off its defensive pressure in the second half as their lead never dipped below 10 points. In fact, their lead extended to 22 with 13 minutes to go before finally settling at 17 at the buzzer.
Offensively, the Terriers struggled not only with the press but also from behind the arc, hitting only 15.4 percent of their shots from 3-point land. Senior forward Aly Hinton had a particularly difficult game as she hit only one of her six 3-point attempts.
On the defensive end, BU failed to regain the intensity they had in their previous game against the University of Rhode Island on Nov. 18 in which the Terriers gave up only 35 points. BU gave up 38 and 36 points in the first and second halves respectively on Saturday, allowing five St. John’s players to reach double figures.
BU saw four of its own players ‘-‘- sophomore Alex Young (18), sophomore Caroline Stewart (14), Hinton and freshman Caitlynn Moran (11 apiece) ‘-‘- reach double figures, a season high for the Terriers. Young’s point total was only one less than her career high of 19 set last year at the University of Hartford. Stewart also added 10 boards to her total for the game, her first career double-double in her first start of the season.
Outside of those four, however, the Terriers could only muster nine additional points from the remaining five players who saw action. St. John’s bench outscored BU’s by a 37-6 margin.
The Terriers were hindered of the continued absence of freshman Kristen Sims, who could be out until Christmas with an injury to her right foot/ankle, along with classmate Chantell Alford, who is day-to-day with a nose injury suffered against URI last Thursday.
‘[The injuries] really hurt us quite a bit,’ Greenberg said. ‘One of the things we thought was our strength was the depth chart at our guards spot. Now all of a sudden, we don’t have that at all.’
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