In its first game back from winter break, the Boston University women’s basketball team dropped a heart-breaker against the United States Naval Academy Wednesday in Annapolis, Maryland, 46-41.
This was the Terriers’ (8-10, 3-4 Patriot League) first loss to the Midshipmen (6-12, 1-6 Patriot League) in over a year after sweeping the Mids in both matchups last season.
BU got itself in a hole early on and were down 21-14 at the end of the first half. The Terriers then stormed out of the gate during the third quarter and outscored the Mids 18-10 heading into the fourth quarter, giving them a lead of 32-21.
Despite the Terrier’s momentum, Navy dominated the final frame, outscoring BU 15-9, including an 8-0 run to put the Mids up 41-38 with just over half a minute left.
BU head coach Marisa Moseley said the Terriers must be able to sustain leads in order to be successful and also stressed that the team’s effort needs to sustain longer.
“Going forward, we’ve got to make sure we’re able to sustain our efforts for 40 minutes,” Moseley said, “instead of just 20, or even ten.”
On the offensive side of the ball, the Terriers were led by junior guard Katie Nelson, who went 6-15 from the floor and led the team in scoring with a total of 15 points.
Nelson’s performance was the only bright spot offensively for BU, which struggled scoring throughout the entire game. As a team, the Terriers went 16-48 from the floor. The Terriers especially struggled shooting from three, going just 3-15 from beyond the arc.
BU also struggled to score down the stretch, only snagging three points in the final three minutes of the game.
The Terriers fared much better on the defensive side of the ball, holding the Midshipmen to 34 percent shooting from the field. BU was led on defense by freshman forward Maren Durant who secured a career-high 14 rebounds, as well as senior forward Nia Irving, who secured seven rebounds.
Despite a tough shooting night overall, Navy had a great deal of success from behind the arc, shooting 10-22 from three.
The Mids also took advantage of the Terriers giving the ball up, scoring 24 of their 41 points off turnovers, while BU only managed to score 8 points off of turnovers.
Moseley said turnovers killed the Terriers and she will be stressing the importance of ball security in future practices.
“We didn’t take care of the ball as well as we could, obviously we gave up 21 turnovers,” Moseley said. “Ball security is something we definitely need to continue to get better at, and that’s something we’ll focus on in practice.”
Navy was led on offense by freshman guard Lindsay Llewellyn, who shot five of ten from the floor and scored a team-high 14 points, including a 3-point dagger with four seconds left in the game, putting Navy up 44-41.
On defense, Llewellyn secured a team-high seven rebounds. Both senior guard Morgan Taylor and junior forward Jasmine Bishop tallied six rebounds for the Mids as well.
Despite the Terrier’s close loss, Moseley said she remains confident in her squad and she knows having young players on her team can sometimes result in inconsistencies.
“You’re going to have growing pains when you bring in a young core of players and experiment … We’ve got to make sure we keep our eye on the prize,” Moseley said. “We’ve got the whole Patriot League season left and the postseason as well. We’ve just got to take it one day at a time and continue to try to get better.”
The Terrier’s will be back in action at home on Jan. 25 for an Alumni Day matchup against Holy Cross at Case Gym, with tip-off set for 4 p.m.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to the Midshipmen as the “Midshipwomen”
The women’s basketball team are the Midshipmen or Mids. Midshipwoman is not used.