Women’s Basketball: BU defeats Lafayette in Patriot League Road Opener

Featured image by Claire Guest

By Henry Dinh-Price

Dominance down low. 

Forwards Caitlin Weimar and Anastasiia Semenova led the way for Boston University women’s basketball (10-3, 2-0 PL), combining for 40 points as the Terriers won their first road fixture of Patriot League play, 62-55, over the Lafayette Leopards (6-7, 1-1 PL) at the Kirby Sports Center in Easton, Penn. 

Weimar, the Patriot League Preseason Player of the Year, dominated inside, notching 19 points and 17 rebounds. 

“I thought Cait obviously was tremendous today,” BU head coach Melissa Graves said postgame. 

Weimar’s interior presence was huge all game, and Lafayette didn’t have any answers. But her brilliance is to be expected. BU needs a co-star next to her to win. 

On Saturday, her co-star was Semenova. A sophomore, Semenova dropped a career-high 21 points to lead all scorers. She added eight rebounds and shot 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. 

“I thought Ana played really well,” Graves said. “I would say she’s our most improved player.”

Semenova, who started the season coming off the bench, has started in BU’s last four games after fellow sophomore forward Anete Adler suffered a lower leg injury on December 5. Adler has remained sidelined since. 

The injury to Adler is a big loss, but Semenova has stepped up in a huge way and made the most of her increased playing time. She has set a new career-high in points in four of her last five outings. 

The Terriers have won all five of these contests, their longest winning streak of the season.

“If she can play the way she is now consistently, I think she’s a huge x-factor for us,” Graves said. 

The first half was a back-and-forth affair, featuring 10 lead changes, but a pair of free throws from Weimar put BU ahead 24-23 with 3:26 left in the second quarter. The Terriers never looked back after that, holding the lead for the rest of the contest. 

The size and skill of Weimar and Semenova, who stand at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-2, respectively, could not be matched by Lafayette, who frequently fouled the two once they got near the basket. Weimar shot 9-for-14 from the free-throw line, and Semenova made 8-of-9. 

Graves raved about Weimar’s ability to get to the line. 

“The thing we talked about after the game that people don’t notice as much is that she drew 13 fouls, which is so huge to get us in the bonus, to get their posts in foul trouble,” Graves said.

The Terriers shot a whopping 27 free throws, three times as many attempts as the Leopards. Weimar and Semenova accounted for 23 of them. 

“We won the game at the free throw line. We didn’t have as many shot attempts and as many makes as them in the half-court, but we got to the free throw line 27 times,” Graves said. 

The Terriers shot just 37.3 percent (19-for-56) from the field, their least efficient output of the season, but getting to the line helped remedy their poor shooting night. 

Another key for the Terriers was limiting turnovers. Turnovers have been a weak spot for BU all year, as they averaged 18.9 per game entering the contest. But on Saturday, the Terriers recorded a season-low 10 giveaways. 

“Today I thought we did a good job of taking care of the basketball,” Graves said. “That’s been a focus of ours in practice and how we can have it translate to the game because we’ve been turning it over a lot.”

The Terriers widened a five-point halftime lead with eight straight points early in the third quarter. A corner 3-pointer from junior guard Alex Giannaros and five quick points from Semenova gave the Terriers a 38-25 lead, their largest of the night. 

With under two minutes remaining in the third, BU still led by 13, but Lafayette ended the frame on a 7-0 run, capped off by a top-of-the-key 3 from junior guard Abby Antognoli. 

Lafayette continued to inch closer. A floater from junior guard Halee Smith with 5:41 remaining in the fourth cut the Terrier lead to three, the closest since the first half. 

“We knew they weren’t going to quit. They came at us hard and they played a really good game,” Graves said. 

But the Terriers answered with an 8-0 run over the next three minutes, highlighted by a 3 from Semenova with 2:42 remaining.

 

By the end of the BU burst, the Leopards were down by 11 with under two minutes left, not enough time to mount a comeback. 

“They made a run and we were able to stop that run and then continue to make ours,” Graves said. 

Lafayette got close, but BU never let them reestablish a lead on their way to a crucial road win. 

The Terriers will have an opportunity to pick up another road victory when they face off against American (4-9, 2-0 PL) on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. in Washington D.C. 

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