Box Score
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MOON TOWNSHIP, PA. – The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team led top-seeded Robert Morris at halftime, but could not hold off the regular season champions, as the Blackbirds lost in the first round of the 2014 Northeast Conference Tournament, 65-49.
It was a tale of two halves in the Sewall Center, as LIU dominated the top team in the league for the first 20 minutes of play. Cleandra Roberts opened scoring for the Blackbirds, with a driving layup at 19:05. The senior led off in what would be a 10-2 run to open the game for LIU, as Robert Morris struggled to make shots. The host team shot just 11 percent from the field, going 1-9 in the first ten minutes.
The Colonials put together a 5-1 run to close the lead to 12-7, but redshirt junior Kelly Robinson hit a floater in the paint to make it 14-7, with 8:05 left to play. Coming out of the 8 minute media timeout, both teams started to score. RMU went on a 6-2 run to cut the lead to 16-13, with 6:36 remaining in the half. But the Blackbirds weren't done yet. Junior Letava Whippy had a steal, and made the fast break dish to Roberts, who made the layup at 5:31, to go up, 18-13. It sparked another 10-2 LIU run. Senior Genise Presley hit the jumper in the paint to cap the run, giving the Blackbirds a 26-15 lead with2:47 to play. In the final two minutes of the first half, RMU outscored LIU, 9-5, to close the gap to 31-24.
LIU shot 52.1 percent from the field, and 60 percent from three point range in the first half, in stark contrast to Robert Morris's 32 percent from the field, and 16.7 percent from behind the arc. The Blackbirds held the top rebounder in the league, Artemis Spanou, to just five rebounds in the first half, as Roberts pulled down 12 rebounds, including 10 defensive, to lead LIU.
Coming out of halftime, though, Spanou showed why she was the 2014 NEC Player of the Year, as she went on a 7-2 run of her own. The forward hit back-to-back layups and a three-pointer, to close LIU's lead to just 33-31. She was joined by her teammates in the run, as the Colonials put together a 20-4 tear that spanned eight and a half minutes, and saw the No.1 seed go up, 44-35.
The Blackbirds kept fighting. Roberts would score on back-to-back layups, to close the lead to 46-39, but the Colonials added another 11-2 to take a 57-41 lead at 5:42. From there, the two teams went shot-for-shot, but the damage was done, and the Colonials took the win, 65-49, to advance to the NEC Semifinals.
"They're just a very, very good basketball team," LIU Brooklyn head coach Gail Striegler said after the game. "It's hard when you have a player of [Artemis] Spanou's capabilities. They're a very good team, a very good defensive team, and I expect them to have a great end of the season, just like they have since the beginning."
Spanou led all players with 22 points and 15 rebounds, while RMU freshman Anna Nikki Stamolamprou had all 14 of her points in the second half, and Kelly Hartwell added eight of her ten points in the final 20 minutes as well.
RMU shot 61.3 percent from the field in the second stanza, including 75 percent from long distance. LIU was held to just 27.3 percent from the field, and 16.7 from behind the arc in the second half.
"I give our kids all the credit in the world," Coach Striegler said. "They played hard from start to finish; we just couldn't score in the second half. And a part of that was what [RMU was] doing defensively, and a part of that was that we just didn't hit the shots. Our team has had a lot of heart from the beginning of the year, and it's a great group of kids."
Sophomore Sophie Bhasin led LIU with 14 points, while senior Cleandra Roberts had her eighth double-double of the season, scoring 13 points, and pulling down 13 rebounds. Junior Kelly Robinson tied her career high with 12 points, along with four assists, while junior Letava Whippy had six assists and three steals.
With the loss, the Blackbirds finish the 2013-14 season with a 9-21 overall record, finishing 7-11 in NEC play.