By Dylan Butler
After taking several steps forward in the past few weeks, the Queens College women's basketball team took one step back in a 62-39 loss to Southampton at Fitzgerald Gymnasium Monday afternoon.
“The effort wasn't that good,” said Queens' head coach Jerry Ingenito. “We didn't play hard. We need to be more steady, we're up and down too much.”
The Lady Knights came out of the gate and played uninspired, listless basketball, falling behind 22-8 with 7:29 left in the first half. Southampton extended its lead to 29 points, 33-14, on an eight-foot jumper by senior center Evelina Breivaite (eight points, three rebounds) with two minutes left in the first half. The Lady Colonials, which shot 50 percent from the field, went into the break ahead, 33-16. Queens (7-12, 5-10 New York Collegiate Athletic Conference) were just 8-23 in the first half (34.8 percent).
“We're making some of the same mistakes,” Ingenito said. “We should be over some of them. We fought a little bit on defense, but we should be better.”
It was more of the same in the second half as Southampton (14-5, 12-3 NYCAC) went up by 25, 52-27, on a 16-foot jumper by sophomore Corinne Broadhead (11 points) with 6:32 left in the game. While the Lady Colonials shot 36 percent from the field in the second half, Queens was just 30 percent. The Knights, which didn't get to the foul line in the first half, was just 5-10 in the second half.
“I'm very pleased with the win,” said Southampton coach Anthony Bozella. “We held them to 39 points, which is a very good defensive effort. We wanted to shut down [Anica] Gant on the penetration and we did. On the offense, we wanted to get the ball inside to our big kids and that worked too.”
Rita Breivaite led Southampton with 13 points, 10 boards, three assists and two steals. Beth Hartman added eight points and four assists for the Lady Colonials. Kiki Dunston had 13 points and six rebounds and Theresa Dollard added six points and six boards for the Lady Knights, which head to Mercy Thursday before hosting C.W. Post Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
New Jersey Tech 64, Queens College 54. April Gross and Dollard scored 10 points apiece and Elena Rakova added eight points and 11 rebounds in the loss Saturday afternoon.
