The Hofstra University women’s basketball team dropped their first game of a three-game non-conference homestand by a score of 68-56 to the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks on Sunday, Dec. 3, at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex.  The game dropped the Pride to 4-3 on the season and gave Lehigh a 7-1 record on their campaign.

Lehigh came into the game as a top-100 offensive team in the country, and they showed it with lights-out 3-point shooting and a high-tempo offense that gave the Hofstra defense fits at times throughout the game. Lehigh had 13 second-chance points compared to Hofstra’s eight. The Mountain Hawks shot 37.1% from beyond the arc and 37.7% for the game with Ella Stemmer and Lily Fandre leading the way with 16 and 15 points, respectively. Fandre also added seven rebounds for Lehigh.

“[Lehigh] having a chance to get off 35 [3-pointers] and then making 13 is hard to overcome,” said Hofstra head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson.

The Pride’s offense was stagnant throughout the game, shooting 31.3% from the field and a meager 23.8% from beyond the arc, both figures are far below the team’s average shooting clips on the season. A combination of unforced turnovers, poor free throw shooting, several missed open layups and solid Lehigh defense led to the Pride’s offensive struggles.

“We missed some shots early; we allowed some scores on their end, and the combination of that, I think, just got us a little deflated in our shots,” Santos said. “[Lehigh] did a great job pressuring us. We’ve got to be able to focus and finish, we had 64 shot attempts and lots of those being layups. We’ve got to be able to convert on a lot of those layups and be able to finish, so we can walk away with a higher shooting percentage and also more points.”

Emma Von Essen tied her career high and was the game’s leading scorer with 18 points on 7-16 shooting. No other Hofstra player was in double figures.

Despite the loss and some occasional lapses, the Pride held the impressive Lehigh offense to their third-lowest point total of the season. The Mountain Hawks came into the game averaging 74 points per game.

“I think we had some lapses defensively and gave up some easy buckets at times,” Santos said. “But overall, we’ve been able to hold teams to a lower shooting percentage; we’ve been able to hold them to below their point scoring. Tonight, I thought we could’ve done a better job again if we sure up that 3-point line, but they do average 70-something points a game, and for us to be able to hold them below that is a positive.”

The Pride will look to bounce back from this defeat on Thursday, Dec. 7, when they host Long Island rivals Iona University.

Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics/Stephen Gorchov