Women’s Basketball: Terrier’s Struggle in Matchup Against Colgate
Featured image by Jackson Shahinfar
By Austin Rayamajhi
Boston University Women’s Basketball (7-8, 1-3 PL) fell in a matchup against the Colgate Raiders (12-5, 2-2 PL), losing by a score of 61-49 on Saturday, Jan. 11.
“Today was a frustrating game,” said Head Coach Melissa Graves. “We are both trying to play really hard and be aggressive and different things, but I think we need to really figure out how do we put 40 minutes together.”
The Terriers got off to a good start as Senior guard Alex Giannaros knocked down her first two shots. The first quarter was a quarter of runs for both teams as Colgate went on a 6-0 run in the middle of the quarter followed by a BU 8-0 run to close the quarter.
The second quarter opened with both teams going cold for the first three minutes. The Terriers were finally able to break the ice, scoring 6 consecutive points. This run meant BU scored 14 unanswered points from the end of the first to the middle part of the second quarter. Colgate scored their first points of the quarter after six minutes and were able to cut BU’s lead to one point going into the half.
Defense was the story of the first half for both teams. The Terriers were able to hold Colgate scoreless for nearly ten minutes of game time, allowing just 24 points in the half. The Raiders were able to match this, holding BU to 2 for 11 shooting in the second quarter.
Colgate was able to flip the script on the Terriers in the second half. The Raiders held BU to nine points in the third quarter as they shot 3 for 10. On offense, Senior guard Taylor Golembiewski took over for the Raiders, scoring 13 of her 28 points for the game in the third quarter. The 13 point outburst included three 3-point shots, including one to give the Raiders a 13 point lead.
“We need to be consistent,” said Sophomore guard Bella McLaughlin. “We are not used to being up right now. We get up and then our sense of urgency decreases a little bit. I think we were taking worse shots.”
The final quarter saw the Terriers make a run to cut the Colgate lead to five. However, this was followed by a 12-0 Colgate run led by Senior guard Morgan McMahon. McMahon scored seven points and pushed the Raiders lead to 17 points with five minutes left, putting the game out of reach for BU. The Terriers ultimately lost by 12 in this matchup at home.
“I think there gets to a point where you start to realize we are going to start running out of chances at some point to actually do what we say we need to do,” said Graves. “I do believe that it is early enough for us to turn it around. I believe in this team.”
BU will look to bounce back on the road against Lehigh on Wednesday, January 15th. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. and will be available to stream on ESPN+.