By Brittany Burke
For the CCSU women’s basketball (9-13, 6-6 NEC) team second time’s a charm as they managed to push past the loss to the Bryant (10-13, 7-5 NEC) on Thursday night to top the Bulldogs 73-59, snapping their three game win streak.
The Blue Devils traveled to Bryant just three days prior to their win on Saturday, with a much different outcome. While on the road, CCSU fell to the Bulldogs 80-71, a game in which the Bulldogs controlled the first half enough to carry them through to the win.
In the second match up of the week yesterday Bryant was able to gain the early lead once again, having a five point advantage with 16:33 left to play in the first, but the lead didn’t last for long.
“[I'm] just so pleased with the effort tonight, but a little frustrated that we go to their gym and we lose because we have a bad first half. We play a full game we win Thursday, we win tonight, and you know we blew that opportunity,” said Head Coach Beryl Piper.
The Blue Devils managed to recapture the lead when they went on an eight-point streak beginning with a layup made by Kerrianne Dugan, which closed the Bulldog’s lead to one. Thirty seconds later Dugan made another layup, pushing the Blue Devils to the advantage.
Bryant hit their own hot streak when they managed to score five consecutive points, which put them in the position to tie the game at 31 with 2:07 left in the half.
With 22 seconds left in the half freshman Kirsten Daamen hit the layup, which gave CCSU the momentum and minor lead going into halftime.
“It was just important for us to put two halves together, and I mean last time we played them we started off terrible and gave them a big lead to go into halftime, and that’s always tough. When you go in with a lead you have that confidence and you feel a lot better going into the second half,” said Dugan. Dugan was the point leader in Saturday’s game contributing 23 points to the overall score.
“Kerrianne had a good night; they couldn’t defend her off the drive. She was getting to the rim whenever she wanted to get to the rim,” said Coach Piper.
Justina Udenze was the second person on the team to have double points, contributing 18 points to CCSU’s lead, 14 of which came in the second half. She helped solidify CCSU’s win, scoring 12 of the last 18 Blue Devil points.
“Coach Piper is stressing that we should get the ball inside; work from the inside out because when you get the ball into the post a lot of good things are happening,” said Udenze of Saturday’s strategic efforts.
Defensively the Bulldogs were right on top of the Blue Devils for most of the game, limiting them to a mere eight three-point attempts, only two of which were made by Emily Rose and 49 field goal attempts. Despite the limited number of opportunities the Blue Devils managed to out shoot the Bulldogs 46.9 percent to 33.9 percent in field goals and 65.8 percent to 61.9 percent in free throws.
“When we lost it’s kind of like, not a wakeup call because we’ve lost games throughout the season, but now we really start working a lot harder in practice because it’s getting important. All the wins we get now, and all the losses all really, really matter so we need to win every game and work harder,” Dugan said.
The Blue Devils continue with their stint at home on Thursday Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. against Robert Morris and continue on through Saturday Feb. 13 at 3:30 p.m. when they face St. Francis (PA).
