By Bob Bonett
The Colonial Athletic Association may not get as much respect or media coverage as the Big East, but in the second round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament on Saturday, Hofstra certainly blurred any quality gap between the two conferences.
Marking the second consecutive year that the Hofstra women’s basketball team has won a playoff game, the Pride continued to impress under the magnifying glass of the public eye, defeating a physical Seton Hall team, 64-52.
The trend of the game slanted in the Pride’s favor perhaps due to their ability to overcome the Pirates’ physical play. Coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey felt that Seton Hall “didn’t expect (Hofstra’s) physicality,” enabling the Pride to avoid being overcome by a strong Seton hall.
Coach Kilburn-Steveskey felt that the girls’ increased intensity was due to conference foes that exhibited similar tendencies to Seton Hall. “Seton Hall is like Old Dominion in terms of aggressiveness, times 10,” Kilburn-Steveskey said.
Hofstra showed an acute ability to stick with the physical Pirates in the first half. Leading 16-12, the Pride hit a groove and managed to rattle off 16 consecutive points, eventually going into the half with a 33-19 lead. The key to the run was not necessarily evident in the boxscore, though, as the hustle of Kilburn-Steveskey’s girls proved to overmatch Seton Hall. One player Kilburn-Steveskey pointed out as keying the run was point guard Niki Williams, who totaled six steals for the game.
“We haven’t done a great job counting deflections this year. [Williams] probably had six deflections where she was causing turnovers,” Kilburn-Steveskey said. “Niki did a great job getting her hands in there, causing disruptions [during the run].”
After increasing the lead to 20 in the second half, with a score of 45-25, the Pirates struck a run of their own, scoring 10 unanswered points. However, contrary to the way the Pride have handled scoring streaks throughout the season, the girls managed to stop the bleeding before Seton Hall could get themselves back into the game, rattling off six consecutive points to take a 51-35 lead.
“Coach always says basketball is a game of runs, and we knew that was their run, and we had to respond with our run,” said forward Lana Harshaw, who scored a season-high 17 points in addition to seven rebounds. “They punched us, and we had to punch them back.”
“What happened in previous games is we didn’t handle the run well,” echoed forward Lizanne Murphy, who added 12 points and five rebounds. “Today, we stayed confident and knew what we had to do in order to end the run.”
Hofstra managed to hold on for the remainder of the game, never allowing the Pirates within eight points of the lead.
Adding to balanced attack was Cigi McCollin with 10 points and Vanessa Gidden with 15 points. Kilburn-Steveskey noted that this scoring attack helped lead the way to the win for the Pride, who entered the game 0-2 all time against the Pirates.
“I can’t say enough about a team win,” Kilburn-Steveskey said. “It really was a team effort.”
The Pirates inability to shoot the ball effectively may have also hampered their chances at beating the Pride. Seton Hall shot only 39 percent from the field. Guard Ela Mukosiej, who scored 12 points, led their scoring attack.
“It’s a respect win tonight and a pride win tonight, because we know what we do every night,” said Kilburn-Steveskey, “and it’s time for the rest of the world to know, too.”
Physical play and hustle throughout enabled Vanessa Gidden and the Pride to upend Big East foe Seton Hall.