Women’s Basketball: Terriers Battle Back, Fall to Bucknell
Featured image by Elyse Paugh
By Ryan Abazari
In a battle between BU teams, the Boston University women’s basketball team (8-15, 2-10 PL) played host to the Bucknell Bison (13-10, 8-4 PL) at Case Gymnasium. With a close 67-63 Bison win, one would assume it was a normal back and forth affair, but this game was the opposite of normal for the Terriers as despite a great overall performance, short stretches would determine the entire game.
The two Patriot League rivals just matched up less than a month ago, in a game the Bisons won 74-59. Both games would have very similar game scripts, as the Terriers took an early lead but then would fall into an early 24-10 hole and despite cutting the deficit to just six early in the third quarter, they were never able to fully recover. This meant that despite losing by 15, the Terriers would outscore the Bisons in the second and third quarters.
‘Tonight the Terriers would take an early lead with an Alex Giannaros three that would put them up 12-8 with half of the first quarter done with. But in a case of deja vu, the Bison would go on a 16-2 run over the next eight minutes, giving them a lead they would never relinquish. The run would be heavily supported by four Bison three pointers, including two from their leading scorer on the night, freshman Reese Zemitis.
After that moment, the Terriers would remind us of the team that would reach the Patriots League championship the previous year, but despite cutting the lead to within six points multiple times, Bucknell would pull away every time building the lead up to 13 on multiple occasions.
When asked about her team’s performance Coach Melissa Graves would say “I thought we played really hard. I thought we had some mental lapses, especially defensively in the first half, which we talked about again and kind of reviewed at halftime and I thought we really locked into those for the most part.” This was showcased with the Terriers outsourcing the Bison in the second half.
The main reason the Terriers were even able to get close was due to the stellar play of sophomore Aoibhe Gormley, who would score a game high 16 alongside pulling down eight rebounds. After not scoring in the first half and only having a singular rebound, she would catch fire scoring 12 points in the third including an insane run where she would go, and-one, jumper, and-one sending the Roof into a frenzy.
When asked about her unbelievable ability to get to the basket and score on the multiple six footers she said “It was easier to drive today when we played with two bigs…” and “Just kept attacking those and pretty easy to get down into the paint” (when the two bigs where in the game).
Gormley had very similar thoughts as her head coach saying, “I think just lock in. I thought our second half was a lot better today defensively locked in. We just had lapses down the stretch, the last three minutes that kind of hurt us.”
Despite making it a single possession game late, preseason Patriot League DPOY and reigning Patriot League player of the week, Bison superstar Ashley Sofilkanich would hit some clutch free throws late to kill the dreams of a comeback.
After a 22 point, 7 rebound and 6 assist statline last time against the Terriers, Sofilkanich would cool down with only 11/4/6, stopping her phenomenal six game 20+ points streak. Her averages during this six game stretch you may ask? 25.7 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 4.7 assists, oh and she also tied the Bucknell single game scoring record with 44 against the Colgate Raiders.
The Terriers will take on those same Raiders next time out, heading on the road to upstate New York. That game will be at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and will be streaming on ESPN+.