Bruno broke even during the weekend’s Navy Classic in Maryland, losing to the Naval Academy 81-61 Friday and beating the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 92-53 Saturday.
In Saturday’s game, the Bears (3-3) not only earned their largest margin of victory for the season but also set a record with 15 three-point field goals and scored the team’s highest number of points in almost 31 years.
“We definitely struggled in the first game … but I think that we were able to bounce back in the second game,” said Sophia Bikofsky ’15. “We put up 92 points, which is awesome. … That shows our resilience.”
Navy 81, Brown 61
The Bears suffered their biggest loss of the season on a day when little seemed to work for the team. Making only 25.9 percent of its three-point attempts and scoring only 11 points off 11 turnovers, the team had limited options to replicate the double-digit comebacks seen in its past two games — the Bears made up 13- and 17-point deficits against Bryant University and Army, respectively.
Lauren Clarke ’14 and Bikofsky were the two double-digit scorers for the Bears with tallies of 18 and 10, respectively. Mids forward Jade Geif led her team with 13 points.
Navy (6-2) took the lead midway through the first half, and Brown never took it back. By the end of the half, the Mids were up by 16, and they went into the locker room with the scoreboard reading 41-25.
“We got off to a slow start in the first half, and dug ourselves in a hole,” said Head Coach Jean Marie Burr. “They were just too good to chip away at it.”
If Bruno had hopes of a second-half comeback, Navy quickly dashed them, scoring 14 points in four minutes to start the half. Brown improved the score with 13 points in the final four minutes, but it was too late for a full comeback.
“We had a good rotation going in the second half — I thought the team did a good job,” Burr said.
Brown 92, UMBC 53
In Saturday’s game, the Bears regained their usual accuracy from behind the three-point line, finishing the game with a 53.5 percent conversion rate from beyond the arc. The 45 points from treys beat the team’s 2012 all-time record of 39 and helped the Bears register their highest score since Dec. 14, 1982.
Bruno dominated the game in most aspects, registering higher stats than UMBC (1-7) across the board, steadily increasing its lead with a higher volume and accuracy of shots.
The Retrievers were ahead for a total of 19 seconds during the entire game, after making a trey in the first minute. But after the Bears took the lead 52 seconds into the first half, they never let it go. Though the game saw no particularly notable point runs, Bruno steadily increased its lead. The first half finished 51-29 in favor of Brown, and toward the end of the second half, the Bears recorded an impressive 42-point lead, the team’s highest this season.
Bikofsky, who was named to the Navy Classic All-Tournament Team, led the Bears, scoring six treys for a total 21 points overall. Jordin Alexander ’16, KJ Veldman ’17 and Carly Wellington ’14 scored in the double digits, and Rebecca Musgrove ’17 recorded a career-high six steals.
“(The result) definitely gives us confidence, it shows us what we can do, our potential,” Bikofsky said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it going.”
For their next games, the Bears will return to the Pizzitola Center, first facing the University of Rhode Island Wednesday at 7 p.m. and then hosting the University of Maine, Morgan State University and Fairfield University in the Brown Classic this weekend.
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