With only six available players, the Lafayette women’s basketball team (8-15 overall, 5-8 Patriot League) lost 84-54 to Boston University (19-6 overall, 14-0 Patriot League) on Saturday.
After winning five of six, Lafayette has now lost three games in a row in the midst of an injury crisis. The Leopards sit fourth from the bottom in the Patriot League standings.
“Since we’d known we only had six players, we knew it was gonna be hard to not get fatigued throughout the game, but we wanted to work as hard as we could to stop them from getting transition points,” sophomore guard Halle Smith said. “So leading up to the game, we prepared for transition defense and better transition offense. We also knew the Boston University team is a really tall team and pretty big, so we needed to try our best to box those guys out so they didn’t get easy putbacks or easy layups.”
Junior guard Makayla Andrews had an impressive performance in Saturday’s loss. She drained 21 points, one basket away from her season-high of 23.
“[Andrews] had a really good game,” Smith said. “She was able to get around twenty-one points. [It] was good to have some points up on the board, for her and as a whole as a team.”
Along with Smith, rookie guard Sauda Ntaconayigize joined Andrews in scoring double-figure points. The Quebec, Canada native scored 10 points. Junior center Aniya Matthews also had an impressive showing, scoring a career-high eight points.
Boston was led by junior forward Caitlin Weimar, who had 21 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guard Maggie Pina added 19 points of her own, while senior guard Liz Shean and senior forward Maren Durant chipped in 12 and 11, respectively.
The Terriers led the Leopards 24-14 by the end of the first quarter, as Andrews scored five points for the Maroon and White.
Weimar then netted eight points in an 11-0 Boston run that opened up the second quarter. The Terriers headed into halftime leading 42-21.
Andrews again led the Leopards with eight points in the third quarter, bringing her total to 15 as Lafayette trailed 64-39 heading into the fourth.
The Leopards put up some points in garbage time, but the Terriers added another 20 in the fourth to solidify the drubbing.
The Leopards return to Easton on Saturday for another Patriot League clash, as they host Army at 2 p.m.
“We lost to Army the last time we played them. Our goal as a team is just trying to better our game plan by playing better defense, executing our offense so we can get good shots and just letting the game come to us rather than forcing the game,” Smith said. “Right now, we’re basically in the middle of the conference, getting into tournament play. I think a goal for myself and as a team as a whole just works really hard regardless of if we don’t have many numbers or not, and just doing the best that we can and hopefully getting a championship on the record.”