What looked like a Boston College blowout through 25 minutes of play turned into a battle down the stretch for women's basketball, but Ayla Brown saved the Eagles after a second-half run shrank their lead from 25 to eight points. Brown's tough baskets down the stretch lifted BC to a 71-60 victory over Hofstra, and a 3-0 record on the young season.
Mickel Picco led the Eagles early, hitting three of her first four 3-point attempts in the first half. BC surged to a 39-18 lead at halftime, thanks to some suffocating defense and 48 percent shooting from the floor.
The BC lead ballooned to as much as 25 early in the second half, but the Eagles lost some of the shooting touch that had looked so good in the first. They shot just 23 percent in the game's final frame. With most of BC's starters resting for the majority of the second half, Hofstra's Candice Bellocchio led the charge and made the game's final eight minutes interesting. Telegraphed passes and the allowance of some open shots on the defensive end hurt the Eagles down the stretch.
In the game's final minutes, Brown seemed to want the ball in her hands after coming off the bench. "Ayla's been very consistent for us," said head coach Sylvia Crawley after the game. "She gives me peace of mind out there, knowing that she's available on the bench. When other teams substitute in, they lost something … with us, we don't skip a beat. We ran some plays to her there in the last few minutes. We challenged her, and she did a nice job for us."
Fresh off the best performance of her young career, center Carolyn Swords had 14 points despite resting most of the second half. "She's on a nice run," Crawley said. "She goes hard when she's in, she's willing to bang and rebound inside." Especially in the first half, good things seemed to happen for the Eagles whenever the ball touched Swords' hands, whether it was her turning to the basket for a layup or distributing to Picco on the perimeter.
Picco finished with 16 points on the night, 12 of which came via 3-pointers. Brown had 16, and Stefanie Murphy added nine points and seven rebounds.
The Eagles will now head off to Cancun, Mexico, for the Thanksgiving Caribbean Challenge tournament. They will face TCU and James Madison in Mexico. With consistent play from Swords and Murphy and an energized bench, the Eagles can return home with more than a break from the chilly Boston winter.
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