By Brian Bohl
Britné Rodgers notched her first career double-double, hauling in a career-high 15 rebounds to go along with 18 points. But outside of the Hofstra locker room on Sunday afternoon, the freshman forward could only describe the just-completed game as the biggest disappointment of the season.
Considering the Pride is 14 games under .500 and tied for the last in the CAA conference, that was an indicative statement.
Against a struggling Northeastern squad, Hofstra buzzed from the opening tipoff, scoring the first nine points en route to opening a 17-point lead. Then the wheels came off, as the Huskies came all the way back thanks to Shaleyse Smallwood’s 32-point effort in a 71-67 overtime Pride loss at the Mack Sports Complex.
“It’s the most frustrating loss we’ve had,” said Rodgers, whose 15 rebounds were a season-high for an individual on the Pride this season. “We beat them before and had them, and they came back. We rested at the wrong times.
“It’s frustrating because we did a lot of good things but the small things…we just don’t put it all together every time.”
A season-high crowd of 2,169 saw the home team drop into a tie with Northeastern for last place in the CAA. Coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey could only watch helplessly as her unit fell to 4-18 overall and 2-9 against the conference. The Pride’s penchant for turnovers- a season-long issue- again contributed to a losing effort as the Huskies scored 28 points off 20 turnovers to improve to 7-14 (2-9 CAA).
“It was eight minutes where we just lost fire,” Kilburn-Steveskey said after her team squandered a 25-8 lead. “I was baffled with that heading into halftime. It wasn’t just one person. It was collective. There were some moments out there where we didn’t look confident to take it.”
The loss is another lowlight in a season that has featured a 30-point game, a 10-game losing streak and a defeat to six-win Rider. Natty Fripp helped erase a six-point deficit in the second half and force overtime, finishing with 18 points. No other Pride player reached double figures and the defense struggled to contain Kendra Walton (13 points) and Smallwood, who finished 11-16 from the field and scored 22 points in the second half.
“We had a hard time with her last year,” Kilburn-Steveskey said. “We kept trying to tell them how deadly she [Smallwood] can be. She started hitting her midrange jumper. We closed down on her and she was elevating above us and putting it in.”
Freshman point guard Candice Bellocchio ignited the opening surge, tallying four assists in the first five minutes. She finished with 10 assists and eight points, though Smallwood was able to seal the win by disrupting her shot with 1:11 remaining in overtime.
Down by one, Bellocchio tried to force up a jumper with the shot clock running down. Smallwood smacked the ball loose for the steal and culminated the effort by knocking down a jumper with 52 seconds left to put the Huskies up 65-62.
Rodgers had one last chance to tie it again, but her three-point attempt from the opposite side of the Hofstra bench hit the iron, glass and the rim again before Kim Carr grabbed the rebound. Carr sank two free throws with 11.9 seconds, building a five-point edge at 69-64 to secure the victory.
“Our problem was everyone made one mistake,” Kilburn-Steveskey said. “We had to make adjustments. We didn’t start the second half on the right foot.”
Sam Brigham entered as the Pride’s leading scorer. The sophomore guard even enjoyed her own cheering section behind the team’s bench but struggled for a second straight game. Brigham, who entered averaging 10.3 points per game, was held to two points on 1-6 shooting. That followed her six-point game in a loss to UNC-Wilmington last week, depriving Hofstra of a complementary scoring option.
Notes: The contest was one of the Pride’s three nationally televised games on the schedule
Both teams wore pink warmup jerseys as part of a promotion for raising breast cancer awareness
The Pride’s last overtime game came Feb. 12, 2006.