NEW BRITAIN, Conn. – The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team saw their season come to an end Sunday afternoon in Detrick Gymnasium, as the No.8 seeded Blackbirds could not upset the Northeast Conference Tournament's No.1 seed Central Connecticut State, falling to the host Blue Devils, 72-51.
With the loss, LIU finishes the season 9-21 overall, 6-12 in conference play, while CCSU advances to the semifinals.
The game was close in the first half, but the Blackbirds could not stop a surging CCSU team in the second half, as the Blue Devils limited LIU's shooting to just 20 percent in the second stanza.
After CCSU jumped out to an early 4-0 lead to start the game, LIU was able to battle back. A layup by senior
Letava Whippy got the Blackbirds on the board, and two minutes later, a three from sophomore
Shanovia Dove helped LIU take a 10-9 lead at 16:23. The two squads traded the lead from there, with the Blue Devils leading by a handful of points. At one point, CCSU took a 29-23 lead, but a jumper from junior
Sophie Bhasin, followed by a jumper from freshman
Drew Winter, and LIU cut the lead back down to two points, 29-27 at the four-minute mark.
Two minutes later, junior
Shanice Vaughan drained a three pointer to tie the game up at 31-31. The Blue Devils answered with a three of their own, and the home team took a 35-32 lead into the break.
Coming out of halftime, CCSU saw Kayla Miller open up scoring, as she had five points for the Blue Devils over 30 seconds of play, widening the home team's lead up to 40-34. But LIU used a layup from Whippy and a three pointer from freshman
Paris Jones at 15:58 to tie the score back up at 40-40. Two minutes later, however, CCSU started to go on a run. Over a minute of play, the home team landed three-straight three pointers, blowing the lead open, 49-40. The Blue Devils increased the run to 13-0 with back-to-back layups, and the NEC regular season champions led 53-40, with 12:03 on the clock.
The home team continued to distance themselves from the Blackbirds, on what would eventually be a 19-1 run, taking a 59-41 lead with just under eight and a half minutes to play. The damage was done, and LIU would struggle to recover in the final minutes of play, with CCSU taking the eventual win, 72-51, to advance to the tournament semifinals against No.6 seed St. Francis Brooklyn.
BLACKBIRD BITS• CCSU got 36 points from its bench, including senior Kaley Watras, who led all scorers with 20 points, including going 3-for-4 from long distance.
• The Blue Devils scored 20 points off turnovers, and had 22 second chance points. CCSU also out-rebounded the Blackbirds, 48-32.
•Bhasin led LIU with 12 points and six rebounds, despite foul trouble. Senior
Letava Whippy had a team-high seven rebounds and three steals, while
Shanovia Dove added eight points and two assists. Freshman
DeAngelique Waithe also added seven points, six rebounds and a block.
• LIU shot 20.8 percent from the field in the second half, to CCSU's 46.4 percent.