The Massachusetts women’s basketball team ended its three game road trip with a 78-61 loss at Boston College Wednesday night.
The game remained close throughout the first half with the lead see-sawing back and forth. However, the Eagles used an 8-0 run to go up 32-30 at halftime.
Leading the way for the Minutewomen (1-7) in the first half was junior forward Jasmine Watson, tallying 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting and 3-of-3 shooting at the free throw line.
UMass, which has had severe turnover troubles, only committed five turnovers in the first half. Coming into the game, the Minutewomen were averaging just under 19 turnovers per game.
Eagles (3-1) guard Shayra Brown led the team in scoring for the first half with 11 points on 2-of-8 shooting from the field and a perfect 7-of-7 from the charity stripe.
Within the first couple of minutes of the second half, UMass was able to take the lead back after a 3-pointer by Megan Zullo and free throws by Carolann Cloutier and Jasmine Watson which put the Minutewomen up, 37-36.
Much like the first half, the lead would go back and forth some more before the Eagles went on a 14-4 run that put them up by 11, 59-48, around the six minute mark.
Boston College guard Tiffany Ruffin, who came into the game averaging 5.7 points per game, came up big during that run and finished with a game-high 18 points along with Brown.
The run would continue, as a 3-point play by Ruffin, a couple of free throws for Kristen Doherty and a jumper from Brown put the Eagles up, 66-50 with just over five minutes to play in the game.
With Boston College up 70-54, UMass ran off a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to nine points. The momentum was quickly thwarted by the Eagles, though, as they responded with a 6-0 run to effectively put the game out of reach for the Minutewomen.
Watson and Shakia Robinson led the Minutewomen in scoring with 15 and 14 points respectively. Emilie Teuscher and Megan Zullo were the only UMass players to convert 3-point attempts, as the duo combined to go 6-for-11 from beyond the arc. The rest of the team was 0-for-6 on 3-pointers.
Collectively, UMass struggled from the field, hitting on only 39 percent of its shots for the game.
Ruffin and Brown’s game-high 18 points both exceeded their season averages which, prior to the game, were 9.6 points per game and 7.4 points per game, respectively.
A key part of the Eagles success against the Minutewomen was their ability to cash in at the charity stripe. BC converted 26-of-27 free throws (96.3 percent),
The win gave BC their eighth win in the last nine meetings against UMass, putting the series, which began with a UMass win in 1981, at 10-4 in favor of BC. The last win for UMass was at home in 2007.
The Minutewomen will now head back home, where they will await for the arrival of Providence for a 7 p.m. game Friday night at the Mullins Center.
Eric Mansfield can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @MDC_Mansfield
