The Boston University women’s basketball team honored its two seniors Saturday afternoon before the duo led the Terriers in a tough loss to Bucknell University.
While graduate student guard Troi Melton and senior guard Clodagh Scannell both performed strongly in one of their last home games, the Terriers (3-23, 3-12 Patriot League) still fell 72-59 to the Bison (20-6, 14-1 Patriot League).
Scannell started the game with a 3-pointer, but Melton took over from there on out. Together, the seniors scored BU’s only points of the first quarter, with Scannell registering the early basket and Melton banking in eight points. Their efforts, along with some tough defense, saw the Terriers down 13-11 at the end of the first quarter.
Coming into Saturday, BU knew it would have to control sophomore Jacquie Klotz and junior Claire DeBoer, two of the Patriot League’s top scorers. They average 16.5 and 15.9 points per game, respectively.
While Klotz played well in the opening half, scoring 18 of her eventual 25 points, Melton rivaled her performance. Similarly, DeBoer scored 21 points throughout the game. Despite performing well, the Terriers were down 30-25 at the half.
In the third quarter, momentum swung in Bucknell’s direction. While the Bison average 6.8 steals a game, fourth worst in the league, they registered 11 against the Terriers. In the third quarter alone, Bucknell recorded five steals and 12 points off turnovers.
BU head coach Katy Steding admitted that the third quarter quickly got away from her team.
“I think they just made a lot more shots than they were making early on,” Steding said. “We held them to 30 percent in the first half, so they were making a lot more shots, and we showed our immaturity as a team. Not our emotional immaturity, just our immaturity as a team in trying to get it back right away. We tried to get some quick shots.”
While Melton kept BU within range, sophomore guard Meghan Doogan, who was coming off a career night against Colgate University, brought the Terriers back from collapse. She went 3-for-4 in the third quarter and finished the game with nine points. Behind Doogan, BU bounced back some, something Steding said she’s extremely proud of.
“They’re in it,” Steding said. “They’re focused, they listen, they try to execute the best they can, but sometimes the pace of the game just gets away from us. This was a game where only a few weeks ago, that third quarter would’ve devastated us and we would’ve had a similar quarter in the fourth quarter.”
By the end of the third quarter, it was clear that the Terriers had their heads back in it. They went 6-for-13 from the field in that timespan and took that momentum into the fourth quarter.
BU shot 50 percent in the final quarter and whittled the lead down to 12 with just over five minutes to play, but the deficit was too much to overcome. DeBoer buried a three with under two minutes left to seal the victory for the Bison.
After the game, Steding said she was extremely proud of the way her team fought back and, in particular, the showing her seniors gave forth.
“You want everyone to have a great senior night and more often than not, they don’t come out and have a performance like Troi did tonight,” Steding said. “But either way, it’s great. It’s an emotional day for everybody. I’m just really glad for Troi and Clo[dagh] both. You have a choice to buy into the emotion of it and not focus on what we need to do, and I thought both of them were very business-like. So I think they did a great job.”
