The Binghamton women’s basketball team played championship caliber basketball for the final 10 minutes on Saturday, but it takes 40 great minutes to beat the defending conference champs.
The Bearcats (10-17, 6-8 AE) cut a 19-point second half deficit to four multiple times, but could not complete the comeback as they dropped a 73-66 decision to the Hartford Hawks (20-7, 13-1 AE) on Senior Day, Saturday afternoon at the Events Center. The Hawks, led by center Danielle Hood’s game-high 18 points, placed five players in double figures.
‘I’m not good at math,’ said head coach Rich Conover, ‘but that’s [the 19-point deficit] a big mountain to climb.’
Binghamton got out of the gate solidly once again, scoring the first three buckets to build a 6-0 lead. But that’s when the Hawks started to dominate, outscoring the Bearcats 39-19 from that point to build a commanding 39-25 halftime lead.
The Bearcats missed a golden opportunity to capitalize in the first half. Down 26-17 with 6:47 remaining before the half, Hood and talented Hartford rookie forward Diana Delva had two fouls apiece. Despite the fact that those two were forced to sit on the bench until intermission, the Hawks expanded their nine-point lead to a 14-point edge at the break.
‘We pride ourselves on having good depth,’ Hartford coach Jen Rizzotti said. ‘When we are in a situation like we were in tonight, where we have our best guys benched with foul trouble, we can still perform and we can still score, and we can still be effective.’
Hartford built its largest lead of the game when reserve guard Danielle Matulis hit a baseline jumper to give the Hawks a 51-32 advantage with 12:31 remaining. This game was headed for the laugher category until the Bearcats found some pride.
Laine Kurpniece, who up to that point had more fouls (three) than points (two), started playing like Binghamton’s version of Shaquille O’Neal. Kurpniece completely dominated the final 12 minutes, scoring 16 second-half points to key the rally and give the Hawks a case of the jitters.
‘We just worked together [for] more looks in the post,’ Kurpniece said. ‘If I felt the defense collapsing, I passed it outside. We [were] doing what we didn’t do in the first half.’
Senior captain Shea Kenny, who was honored before the game along with fellow guard Rebecka Lindgren, felt it was a backs-against-the-wall effort and a switch to a zone defense that keyed the comeback.
‘I definitely think the zone was a key factor in helping us,’ Kenny said. ‘But when it comes down to it, it was our mentality and our mindset, and just how we decided to pick up and play better defense.’
Kenny also felt the team played its best basketball of the season late in the second half.
‘We outplayed them by 14 points in the last 15 minutes,’ Kenny said. ‘Knowing that if we put the effort out, that’s what will come out of it, and it will make it a lot easier for us to motivate ourselves to do it.’
Although the Bearcats showed signs of rounding into championship form, Hartford held its poise just enough to win their 20th game of the season and remain one game ahead of Stony Brook for the regular season title. The Hawks hit nine of 12 free-throw attempts in the last two minutes and sent the raucous crowd of 2,411 home disappointed.
Rizzotti, fully aware of how difficult it is to win at the Events Center, felt relieved when the clock finally ran out on the Bearcats.
‘The first 30 minutes of this basketball game was some of the best basketball we’ve played all year,’ Rizzotti said. ‘I was very pleased with how our kids reacted to that. I know we got tentative and we allowed them to come back in, but to be up 18 at Binghamton, we must be playing well because they’re a really good basketball team.’
For the Bearcats, attention now turns to the chaotic race for third. With Maine’s 79-72 win over UMBC at Alfond Arena, the Black Bears sit all alone in third, one game ahead of BU and Vermont, who lost at Stony Brook. UMBC and Boston University, the Bearcats’ next opponent, each stand at 6-9 and still have a slim chance at the coveted third seed.
‘We lost this game, but we definitely gained confidence from this game,’ Kurpniece said. ‘We showed that we can play against Hartford, and that’s going to help in the Wednesday game against Boston.’