Pride rally late but fall short to Delaware
The Hofstra women’s basketball team dropped their 13th straight game in a 77-67 loss to the University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens on Sunday, Feb. 9, at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex.
The Pride is now 3-19 this season and 0-11 in Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play.
Hofstra was looking for their first conference win of the season against an eighth place Delaware team. While Delaware was only 4-6 in conference play, they came into this game on a two-game winning streak.
The first quarter saw Hofstra get to an early 6-4 lead. The Blue Hens went on a 4-0 run after calling a timeout, but the Pride bounced back. Hofstra was almost perfect on their shot attempts in the last six minutes of the first quarter, the only miss being JaKayla Brown’s attempt at the buzzer to end the quarter with the score tied at 14. Delaware only shot 31% from the field in the quarter, with Hofstra shooting 67%.
The second quarter was not a good shooting quarter for the Pride. Ana Hernandez Gil, the Pride’s three-point sharpshooter, missed all seven of her three-point attempts. The team had a scoring drought in the middle of the quarter that would last over three minutes until Marianne Kalin ended it with 3:24 remaining. Delaware led at halftime 35-28.
Delaware held Hofstra scoreless for a little over three minutes to start the third quarter, going on a 6-0 run. The first score of the half from the Pride would come from Hernandez Gil as she finally got a three to go down. She had a very productive second half, leading the team in points with 14. Hofstra would have another scoring drought later in the quarter, this time for four and a half minutes. This would be broken by Jaylen Hines with 54 seconds left. Hines finished with 11 points and led the team with 5 rebounds.
“We just knew that we had to limit their offensive rebounds, so whenever they shot, we found somebody,” Hines said.
The Pride finished with 17 defensive rebounds.
The fourth quarter saw an opportunity for Hofstra. Delaware called a timeout with 6:41 to play, after which the Pride went on an 8-2 run. The Pride tried to make a late push in the final two minutes of the game, with Hines continuing to put points on the board. However, in the end, Delaware kept up and defeated Hofstra 77-67. Nine players in total put points on the board for the Pride, including four players who had double digits.
“[Kalin] and [Hines] have done a great job of putting themselves in the right position to be able to score,” said Hofstra head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “[Hernandez Gil] steps up for us consistently. People coming off the bench, we need that. It’s going to be a team effort for us, and we’ve known that since the beginning of the year.”
The Pride returns to action on Friday, Feb. 14, as they travel to North Carolina to take on the Phoenix of Elon.
Photo Courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
