By Alexandra Licata — STAFF WRITER
A 23-16 fourth quarter was unable to push Hofstra women’s basketball past the University of Hartford Hawks as they fell 60-49 on Saturday afternoon at Chase Arena.
Hofstra is now 1-2 on the year, while Hartford picked up its first win of the season.
The Pride was attempting to rally and overcome an 18 point deficit entering the quarter, but was unable to keep the Hawks at bay and pull ahead for the win.
Seniors Olivia Askin and Ashunae Durant led Hofstra on the afternoon. Askin scored a career-high 18 points, including four three-pointers. Durant contributed 14 points of her own, as well as eight rebounds. E’Lexus Davis added five assists.
Hartford came out of the gates and scored nine points in the first quarter to put the team up 9-0, which proved to be an insurmountable gap for the Pride. Askin scored two of her three-pointers in the first, which closed the gap to 15-7.
In the second, sophomore Petja Krupenko contributed five of her career-high eight points on the day to cut the deficit to 19-12. Back-to-back three-pointers with just over two minutes to go in the second quarter helped the Hawks to a 30-15 lead as the teams entered halftime.
Layups by Marianne Kalin and Aleana Leon set the Pride off to a good start in the third quarter as they slowly began the mission of closing the gap, but the Hawks responded with an eight point run, which included two three-pointers, and extended their lead to 38-19. Hartford would go on to expand that lead to 20 points with 15 seconds to go in the quarter – their largest lead of the game.
The Pride again opened scoring in the fourth quarter, this time with a three-pointer from Krupenko. Askin netted her third and fourth three-pointers of the day, which cut the Hawks lead to 12 with 5:11 to go. Hofstra cut the deficit to single digits with just over a minute to go behind Durant’s layup, but the Hawks stood their ground to finish with an 11 point lead and the 60-49 win.
Hofstra shot 69.2 percent in the first quarter and 43.2 percent as a whole on the afternoon.
Janelle Harrison led the Hawks with 17 points, while Sierra DaCosta added 15. The Hawks scored 24 points off of turnovers by the Pride.
The Pride returns to their home court on Tuesday for a 7 p.m. matchup against Holy Cross before heading to Las Vegas for the Lady Rebel Round-Up on Nov. 25.
