On Wednesday, the Binghamton University women’s basketball team took its home floor and got revenge on the Boston University Terriers at the Events Center as the Bearcats took the game 59-53.
The last time the two teams met up, Binghamton rallied from a 17-point deficit to take a late one-point lead. Boston, however, fought back, pulling out a 65-60 victory over the Bearcats.
Unable to break an old habit, the Bearcats (18-10, 11-4 America East) came out of the gates slowly Wednesday night and quickly found themselves in an 11-point hole, down 17-6 after 8:43 of play. The Terriers (14-13, 11-4 AE) got baskets from five different players as they were firing on all cylinders. The Bearcats rebounded well from the slow start, though, and were able to cut Boston’s lead down to four, trailing 27-23 at halftime. Senior guard Jackie Ward, who was playing in her second-to-last regular season game with Binghamton, hit a big 3-pointer with 1:03 to play in the first half to give Binghamton some momentum heading into halftime. Still, the Bearcats were only shooting 36.7 percent from the field and head coach Nicole Scholl knew her team was capable of a better performance.
“We talked with our players at halftime who weren’t shooting the ball particularly well, like [juniors] Andrea Holmes, Viive Rebane [and sophomore] Kara Elofson, and said, ‘Look, you’re the top players on our team and it’s time you start hitting some shots for us,'” Scholl said. “I thought that they took that information and went with it and really started believing that we can be a championship team.”
The second half belonged to Rebane, who contributed 15 of her game-high 19 points in the half to go along with 13 rebounds for the game.
“I think I took good shots [in the first half], I just didn’t make them,” Rebane said. “But I was still confident. I make those shots every day in practice so I didn’t panic. I knew I could hit them so I just had to keep on doing what I was doing and not let the fact that I was missing them bother me.”
With 9:24 left in the second half, the crowd went silent as Andrea Holmes came up limping after an injury. There is no official word yet on the extent of her injury.
Without their leading scorer, the Bearcats appeared to have felt a sense of urgency as everyone took a part of the load onto their shoulders.
“Everyone’s got to be more aggressive now, because Andrea’s a huge part of this team,” Ward said. “Obviously, she’s our floor leader and she plays 40 minutes a game, so she’s a huge asset to this team. Everyone tonight stepped up. [Junior] Orla [O’Reilly] was huge running the point and doing it really well, scoring a couple of clutch baskets, and Viive … had great takes to the basket; she was phenomenal. I think everyone did a really good job coming in and I think that’s what it’s going to take if Andrea can’t play. It’s going to take everyone coming together and everyone stepping up.”
With Holmes out due to injury and Rebane in foul trouble, the Bearcats found themselves in an unlikely scenario for some time during the second half as they would be on the floor without both their leading scorers.
“When Andrea went out and when Viive went out, for the first time we didn’t fold, we didn’t get scared or worried that our two leading scorers were out,” Ward said. “We kind of came together instead of saying, ‘Oh no, we’re in trouble.’ We all kind of stepped up and said this is a new challenge for us.”
With 6:55 left to play and the score tied at 45 apiece, Elofson gave the Bearcats a go-ahead layup and the squad never looked back. Both Elofson and Rebane hit a pair of clutch free throws to secure a 59-53 Bearcat win.
Freshman Jasbriell Swain, who tallied her fifth America East Conference Rookie of the Week accolade on Monday, turned in a nine-point, nine-rebound effort. O’Reilly, who had a few key shots in the ballgame, finished with 10 points.
With the win, the Bearcats are now tied for second place in the conference with Boston. A win tomorrow would ensure a No. 2 seed in the America East tournament for Binghamton.
The final game of the regular season for the Bearcats is scheduled for 2 p.m. tomorrow as Binghamton travels to Stony Brook.