{"id":35871,"date":"2023-01-08T20:41:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T01:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=35871"},"modified":"2023-01-08T20:41:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T01:41:34","slug":"womens-basketball-terriers-beat-american-in-fourth-straight-win-behind-pina-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2023\/01\/08\/womens-basketball-terriers-beat-american-in-fourth-straight-win-behind-pina-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Basketball: Terriers beat American in fourth straight win behind Pina, Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Boston University Women\u2019s Basketball (9-6, 4-0 PL) defeated the American University Eagles (3-12, 2-2 PL) 73-63 to win their fourth straight game in Patriot League play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With about 5:30 left in the third quarter at Case Gymnasium, BU senior guard Sydney Johnson held the ball surrounded by multiple opposing defenders, deep in her own half following a turnover.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Eagles, holding a two-point lead that was at once as large as 10 in the second quarter, were releasing a sudden full-court press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson spotted senior guard Maggie Pina across the floor, who immediately upon receiving Johnson\u2019s timely lob unleashed a perfectly placed bounce pass. On the other end was junior guard Sophie Beneventine, whose enthusiastic cut was finished with a layup to end an American lead that lasted almost 15 minutes of game time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor them to have the fortitude against a tough team that pressures a ton,\u201d BU Head Coach Melissa Graves said, \u201c[I’m] just really proud of the effort.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Terriers\u2019 impressive three-move sequence to tie the game was a window into the source of BU\u2019s success throughout the game; the Terriers were a constant danger in transition, scoring 11 fastbreak points and 13 off turnovers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The consistent production in transition was a needed boost to what was \u2014 through the first half \u2014 an inefficient shooting performance from the Terriers. BU shot just 11-for-26 from the field in the first two quarters and went 3-for-9 from three before a dominant third quarter recovered both of those marks to a 50% clip.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we really honed in and were able to adjust coming out of the half,\u201d Graves said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pina and Johnson were excellent in particular, combining for 26 points and seven assists. Junior forward Caitlin Weimar, the Terriers\u2019 season-long top scorer, trailed with 10 points, and led both teams with 10 rebounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weimar was dominant in her matchups with 6-foot-1 Eagles forward Emily Johns, who despite finishing with a team-leading 15 points, consistently struggled to contain Weimar on the defensive end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weimar was as impressive on the defensive end herself, recording two blocks and a steal and setting the tone for a Terriers\u2019 defensive performance that surrendered just 22 points in the paint.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond Johns, the Eagles were unsuccessful and largely unwilling to penetrate towards the basket.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Eagles were forced to live and die on their jump shots all game. In the second quarter, which included a 12-0 American run and ended with a six-point Eagles lead, American shot 72.7% from the field and made three 3-pointers. In the second half, that mark plummeted to 34.8%, and the Eagles were outscored by 15 points.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to go to the zone (defense) for the majority of the rest of the game and got some good stops out of it,\u201d Graves said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Off the bench, sophomore guard Lauren Davenport contributed a game-leading 16 points in 23 minutes, including a three from the wing with 4:26 left in the fourth quarter to put the Terriers up 13 points going into the media timeout, an early dagger from which American would never recover.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe (Davenport) was just a great spark,\u201d Graves said, \u201cand she\u2019s been such a great trooper coming out of the starting lineup and moving to the bench. … <\/span>She even came up to me and asked what she can do better. I thought she owned that, and she did that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Terriers will look to continue their four-game win streak after a resilient performance, and move to 5-0 in conference play, at Case Gymnasium against Colgate on Wednesday at 4 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan Boston University Women\u2019s Basketball (9-6, 4-0 PL) defeated the American University Eagles (3-12, 2-2 PL) 73-63 to win their fourth straight game in Patriot League play.\u00a0 With about 5:30 left in the third quarter at Case Gymnasium, BU senior guard Sydney Johnson held the ball surrounded by multiple opposing defenders, deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21477,"featured_media":35872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,1039,1040],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35875,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35871\/revisions\/35875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}