The Hofstra women’s basketball team dropped their first game of the month against the Northeastern University Huskies by a score of 39-68 on Sunday, Feb. 28. Despite 12 points from junior Jaylen Hines, the Pride could not keep up with the three-point barrage of their opponents.

The Pride saw eight of their games cancelled in the month of February due to COVID-19 before scheduling a two-game series against the Huskies. The extended break seemed to affect the team early in the game. Both teams started off slow in the first four minutes when the Huskies stumbled out to a 4-2 lead.

“We had to shake some of the rust off … we missed some shots that we had the ability to make and had been making all season,” said Hofstra head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “Our timing was off with just a few days of practice to get ourselves going again.”

Despite a slow start for the Huskies, the home team found their stroke from beyond the arc by cashing in four three-pointers in the first quarter to establish a 20-11 lead. Freshman Maddie Vizza led Northeastern with 21 points and tallied six of the team’s 15 three-pointers.

“It’s our timing rotations and awareness that we just haven’t had over the last month,” Santos Atkinson said.

 The Huskies maintained an even 50% from the field, which almost doubled Hofstra’s 26.8%. The Pride had several scoreless runs throughout the game and ended the last six minutes without a basket from the field.

“We’ve got to get back to having the rhythm we had going into our pause … I feel like we ran out of gas toward the end of the game,” Santos Atkinson said.

 Hofstra scored seven points in the final quarter, five of which came from junior guard Jahsyni Knight. The University of Pittsburgh transfer finished her birthday with nine points, seven rebounds and three steals.

The biggest success for Hofstra was the 21 turnovers committed by their opponents which led to 17 points on the other end despite giving 20 of their own. The Pride showed glimpses of strong defense when they forced four turnovers in as many minutes in the first quarter before the Huskies went on to 9-0 run.

The Pride has a day off to regroup after the loss before they finish the season with the second game of the series versus the Huskies on Tuesday, March 2. Hofstra’s record stands at 6-11 and 4-7 in conference, which is good enough for fifth in the Colonial Athletic Association.

The Huskies hold a 2-1 lead in the series going into the final game before the conference tournament, which is set to begin on Wednesday, March 10.