Second Half Drought Hurts TU

By: Desmond Boyle, Staff Writer 

A poor scoring display in the second half doomed Towson in an 81-63 loss to Northeastern on Sunday.

Both teams found offensive success early on, Towson attacked from all angles as five different players scored their first five converted attempts from the field. Northeastern attacked the perimeter scoring 12 of their first 14 points from beyond the arc. 

“Communication has to be better, Northeastern is very good at spacing the floor,” Head coach Nikki Geckeler said. “So we made some adjustments in how we switched and moved defensively.”

Huskies senior forward Samantha DeFreese gave her team a 16-13 lead before senior guard Dominique Johnson hit two three pointers in a row to give Towson a 3-point edge with only 3 minutes to play in the first quarter. A layup from freshman guard Sianni Martin gave the Tigers a 23-18 lead going into the second.

The scoring continued as both teams managed to shoot over 50 percent from the field as Towson held a slight lead throughout the second quarter. Johnson hit two more 3-point attempts while junior guard Raven Bankston scored nine of her game high 25 points in the quarter.

The Tigers took the largest lead of the game when they lead by 7 points three times throughout the second but only managed to take a 44-40 lead going into the half.

“It was a game of two halves,” Geckeler said. “It’s happened all year, where we talk about these 8-minute lapses in games where we lose focus, and you can’t do that.”

The Tigers could not find any way to score in the opening 8 minutes of the second half.

Northeastern started the quarter on a 10 point run and held Towson scoreless for the opening 5 minutes of the half. Raven Bankston then hit a layup while getting fouled and converted the foul shot to end the quarter with the Huskies in front 61-51.

Towson was out scored 7-21 in that quarter and could not generate enough offense to mount a comeback in the fourth.

Towson struggled defensively in the fourth as well as Northeastern almost shot 80 percent from the field while Towson only converted on four shots from the field.

The Huskies played very patiently on offense to open up uncontested shots which helped them finish off the 81-63 victory.

“I think our defense needs to set up our offense and today we just couldn’t get stops on defense to help our offense out,” Geckeler said.

Despite the loss, two Tigers managed to score over twenty points as Johnson added 20 to Bankston’s 25.

Towson will end its regular season Wednesday at 7 p.m. against Drexel.

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