Though it has not been an easy winter break for the Boston University women’s basketball team, the Terriers were able to end the “vacation” on a high note Sunday, beating the University of Albany, 72-64, at Case Gymnasium.
The win snapped a four-game losing streak and gave the Terriers their first America East Conference victory of the season. The win comes after consecutive conference losses to the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Vermont and Stony Brook.
“No question the monkey is off the back,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg about the team’s first conference win. “We really needed the win.”
Tri-captains Katie Meinhardt, Erica Kovach and Cheri Raffo led Terriers in scoring, tallying 17, 16 and 15 points, respectively. Freshman guard Britney McGee led the way for Albany with 15 points, while junior Sherri Mikus netted 14.
BU began the game on a 13-3 run with Kovach scoring eight of the first 13 points. The Great Danes did not let the early Terriers’ offensive burst keep them out of the game as they slowly ate away at the 10-point deficit.
With 6:29 remaining in the first half, Mikus drained a jumper to cap off a 10-0 Albany run, putting the Great Danes ahead 21-20 and giving them their first lead since they were ahead 2-1.
The lead was short-lived, however, as the Terriers came back down the court and answered Mikus’ jump shot with a Kristi Dini 3-pointer. Dini’s shot sparked yet another first half run for the Terriers, which gave them a 36-25 lead at halftime.
Though Albany was not able to take the lead back, they kept the game close. After BU led by as many as 15 points early in the second half, Albany battled back to bring the game within four with 28 seconds to go. Sophomore Christine Kinneary and Meinhardt hit all of their free throws in the waning seconds to round out the scoring.
“We have talked a lot about getting to the free throw line more,” Greenberg said. “We are not going to beat teams by tossing up threes and not banging.”
The Terriers were able to get to the foul line 27 times — 18 times in the first half — and made 21 of their freebies. Albany only shot 12 times from the line, making eight.
The Terriers only gave up the ball 13 times compared to Albany’s 18 turnovers.
“Coach always tells us no jump passes and get down low when passing into the post,” Meinhardt said. “We are looking to only have about 10 turnovers, which is where I think we were last year when we were one of the best teams in the country in that category.”
Now that they have finally gotten that all-elusive first conference win, Greenberg and the Terriers can focus on their next opponent instead of worrying about the zero in the win column.
“You start pressing and thinking, ‘When is this going to happen?'” Greenberg said. “When you aren’t winning, you start thinking about the America East as a whole and not just the opponent. It’s definitely going to be easier to focus now that we got the win.”
BU’s attention over the next week will now switch to the University of Maine. BU will hope to climb up the America East standings with a win at Alfond Arena against the Black Bears on Saturday (7:00 pm).