WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

In a physical and hard fought battle, the HU women’s basketball team came up short, 60-51, to Saint Francis Tuesday night at Platt Arena.

The Foresters put in the work defensively. In addition to limiting the Cougars to just five made triples, half as many as they came into the contest averaging, the hosts also held USF’s two leading scorers in check all evening. Cassidy Crawford and Reganne Pate combine to average 29 points but on this given night, they managed just six points each.

At the other end of the floor, Saint Francis was also on point defensively to limit Huntington to its second lowest offensive production of the season. However, they didn’t have an answer for Konnor Gambrell who went off for a career-best 19 points to go along with 14 rebounds, half of which were offensive, for a double double.

Gabi Melby came off the bench to add ten points. Emily Seboe chipped in nine points and six rebounds.

Huntington started off strong to lead 15-14 after ten minutes of play. Maggard and crew grew their advantage to four at 19-15 three minutes into the second quarter but alas the final seven minutes leading up to the break were problematic. HU managed just four points the rest of the frame to find themselves down 28-23 at half.

Laura Valiente-Marin pulled her team within a point, 28-27, when she split a pair of defenders in the lane for an easy layup at the 8:25 mark of the third. Unfortunately USF countered by way of nine straight points over a three-minute span to establish the game’s first double-digit disparity.

The Foresters cut it to six by the end of the quarter, but it was as close as the hosts would get the rest of the night before the Cougars secured their nine-point victory. With this loss, HU drops to 3-6 on the year which includes an 0-2 league record.

USF (6-3, 2-0) was paced by Emily Parrett’s 15 points. Chloe McKnight tossed in 14 while Ally Madden came off the bench to add eight.

Huntington has a week’s break before heading to Taylor on November 30 for a 7:00 p.m. tip-off with the Trojans.