DARTMOUTH, Mass. – With an opportunity to move into a tie for third place in the Little East Conference with a win Wednesday night, the Eastern Connecticut State University women's basketball team faced a monumental task against a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth team which had coasted to a 38-point win when the teams met for the first time seven weeks ago.
This time around, Eastern (7-12, 5-5 LEC) remained in contention for the first half, slicing a 15-point first-quarter deficit to nine midway through the second quarter before dropping a 77-48 decision to UMass (16-2, 8-1 LEC) at the Tripp Athletic Center.
By losing, Eastern remains in fourth place, a game behind Saturday's home opponent -- the University of Southern Maine – which was beaten by unbeaten conference leader Rhode Island College, 76-47, Wednesday at the Murray Center.
Despite the loss, Eastern has split its last eight games after a 3-8 start heading into a key 1 p.m. game against Southern Maine, which trimmed the Warriors, 60-58 in the first encounter Dec. 9 at the Warren Hill Gymnasium.
The top two seeds gain first-round byes in the LEC tournament, with the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds hosting first-round games Feb. 20. The Warriors have won at least one LEC tournament game each of the past nine years and have advanced to the title game six times in that span, winning conference titles four times.
While the Warriors were matching their total of 23 first-half points Wednesday from its December 6 loss to the UMass Dartmouth, Eastern limited the Corsairs to 14 less points this time in trailing by 17 points this time at halftime (UMD led by 31 at the break in December). UMass led from start to finish, however.
Trailing by one point three minutes into the game Wednesday, Eastern went 1-of-8 from the floor with three turnovers on 11 possessions and was outscored 16-2 as the hosts moved out to a 15-point, 21-6 advantage with two minutes left in the first quarter. The Warriors played a substantial amount of time in the first quarter with leading scorer and rebounding Taylor Salato (East Haven) on the bench after picking up two early fouls.
With UMass penetrating at will but missing numerous uncontested shots in the first half, Eastern remained within striking distance and cut the double-digit deficit to single digits, 25-16 four minutes into the second quarter, when it got points from four different players. Salato, a six-foot junior, sank two free throws and first-year point guard Nevaeh Clark (Cromwell) one and senior Cara McGettigan (Southbury) and first-year guard Julia Knowles (Waterford) contributed jump shot baskets off passes from Clark and trailed by those nine points with 6:25 left in the half.
A winner of seven straight, UMass followed with a modest 7-2 run to re-gain a 14-point, 32-18 lead midway through the second quarter, and eventually improved to 8-1 at home.
In the first half, Clark had eight points, four rebounds and four assists and Salato six points and five rebounds. UMass senior guard Teja Andrews led the Corsairs in the first half with 11 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals and 6-foot-2 inch senior Carly Whiteside had eight points and five rebounds and senior guard Kaylin Zalewski five assists.
Eastern shot just 31 percent in the first half while UMass shot 45 percent and outscored the Warriors, 7-0, on second-chance points thanks to nine offensive rebounds.
Salato led Eastern in the game with her seventh double-double (14 points/11 rebounds) in 31 minutes, with Clark finishing with ten points, nine rebounds, seven assists and two blocks and only one turnover in 36 minutes. McGettigan had nine points and nine rebounds.
Andrews (19 points) and Whiteside (18) combined for 37 of UMass's points and for 13 rebounds. Andrews also had seven rebounds and five assists and Zalewski six assists, four rebounds and three steals.
UMass turned the ball over only seven times (leading to zero Eastern points) and scored 18 points off of the Warriors' 20 turnovers.
The sweep of the season series is the first for UMass over the Warriors since 2018/19, with Eastern having swept the Corsairs twice (including last year) and the teams having split once since that season.
In UMass's win over Eastern in December, Salato and junior Amaris Mills of UMass each had 19 points, with Whiteside of UMass scoring 18 points (7-of-9 FG) and Mills going 8-of-10 from the floor. The Corsairs shot 52 percent from the field and were 17-of-23 from the stripe with seven three-pointers in that game, while Eastern shot 30 percent.
Eastern had an eight-game winning streak against Southern Maine ended in its two-point loss to the Huskies (8-11, 6-4 LEC) in the first of the home-and-home series in early December, in a game where there were eight ties and nine lead changes. In that game, Salato had 19 points and nine rebounds, Clark 17 points, five rebounds and five assists and Knowles 12 points, 11 rebounds and five assists.
The loss to Rhode Island Wednesday gave USM two straight losses, but the Huskies have not lost as many as three in a row since dropping four straight in late November.
Eastern is 2-5 this year at home, having lost three straight conference games at Geissler Gym. USM is 4-6 away from the Hill Gymnasium, 4-4 on its opponent's home floor.