Comes close to beating nationally ranked opponent

On Saturday, the University at Albany women’s basketball team closed out their regular season schedule with a 62-57 victory at Maine. The victory was the team’s fourth in their last seven conference games after losing their first nine.

   Keyana Williams scored a career-high 15 points while Ebone Henry and Felicia Johnson both broke single-season school records in the victory.

   Henry broke UAlbany’s record for points in a season by a freshman, scoring 15 on the night giving her 320 on the season to break the mark set by Becky Ayers in the 2001-02 season.

   Johnson set the single-season record for assists by a sophomore, notching her 105th of the season, breaking the record of 101 set in 1990-91 by Tanya Johnson.

   The victory marks a bit of a resurgence for the team, who will look to go into the conference tournament with confidence as the seventh seeded team.  

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   The UAlbany women’s basketball team pushed a nationally ranked team to the edge last Wednesday, only to have them storm back to take the victory in crushing fashion.

   The Great Danes (10-18, 3-12 AE) took on the Hartford Hawks (24-3, 15-0 AE), ranked 24th in the nation in the AP poll and 23rd in the ESPN/USA Today poll, in what was a game played to final minute. However, in the end the Hawks pulled away from the Danes and took home the victory, 63-57.
 

  Diana Delva led the Hawks to their 17th straight victory, scoring 22 points and adding seven rebounds by dominating inside the paint all night with her size. Erica Beverly was also strong, recording a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

   “Our gameplan was to smother her (Delva) and keep the ball out of her hands,” coach Trina Patterson said. “Her physique kind of wore us down in the end.”

   Charity Iromuanya was honored before the game as part of Senior Night in the final home game of her UAlbany career. She followed that ceremony with a solid performance, scoring 11 points while registering six rebounds and three steals.

   In a start that seemed to surprise the Hawks, UAlbany came out strong, jumping out to an early 6-2 lead on a beautiful end to end run by Felicia Johnson 4:26 into the game. The teams then traded baskets throughout the half, with Albany fighting impressively against an opponent that came in undefeated in conference play. The Danes finished the half in style, going on a 13-3 run in the final 4:54 of the half to go into the locker room with a 29-27 lead.

   The Danes - who have won three out of their last six after losing their first nine conference games - were impressive on their dribble penetration, as they were able to frequently get to the glass against the Hawks, who came into the game with the number one defense in the league, allowing an average of just 43.9 points per game.

   Johnson was able to get to the rim consistently throughout the night despite her diminutive 5’4” frame.

   “Every night I come with the same mentality that I’m just going to test the waters and see if I can [take guards off the dribble], and it was successful tonight,” said Johnson, who finished the night with 18 points and four assists. “I was drawing a lot of attention which opened up Ebone [Henry] and Tabitha [Makopondo] underneath. So it was working, and I was just going to keep going until they stopped it.”

   In the second half, Albany continued to hustle, battling with Hartford and exchanging one and two-point leads until the 1:36 mark. After Delva made two free throws to make the score 61-57, Albany came down the floor looking to cut the lead. However, missed shots by Iromuanya and Henry doomed the Danes, as they simply ran out of time and were forced to foul.

   After the game, although happy with their effort against Hartford, Patterson knew that a win would have been a benchmark for the season.

   “We haven’t won a lot of the close ones, but we’ve been competitive,” Patterson said. “This one would’ve been a great competitive win. We were competitive but it could’ve been something special.”

   The Hawks were only the second nationally ranked opponent UAlbany has ever hosted at SEFCU Arena, the last time being in 2000 when the Danes lost to Mississippi State. Hartford will go into the conference tournament on Friday as the favorites to win the title after clinching the regular season title on Wednesday.

   “Of all the championship teams I’ve had this team is playing as well as any of them or better and we’re doing it with our defense,” Hartford head coach Jennifer Rizzotti said.

“Tonight we might have been a little bit off and to be honest 57 points is a lot for us to give up. But I think we get a lot of confidence knowing we can get out and get stops when we need them.”