Last season the Hopkins women’s basketball team finished a 16-11 season after being eliminated in the conference semifinals. Despite losing many of their top players from last year the team is very confident in themselves this year. They were picked fourth in the preseason conference poll, but the team hopes to make it all the way to the NCAA tournament.
“This season we’re obviously striving to win the conference and make the NCAA tournament like we hope to every year. This year, our goal is to have a stronger start than last year and play consistently throughout the season,” said Junior guard Stacy Fairey.
The team kicked off the season against Salisbury in the Mike Durgala Memorial Tournament. The Seagulls dominated the first few minutes of the game getting off to a quick 9-3 lead. This quickly changed as junior center Ciara McCullagh and sophomore guard Katie Clark led the Jays on a 17-3 run, scoring a combined 15 points in just over five minutes. Hopkins did not let up their lead for the rest of the half and went into the break with a 35-27 lead.
In the second half, however, Hopkins began to have trouble. Less than three minutes in Salisbury had already taken back the lead thanks to an 11-0 run. It did not help that Hopkins had five turnovers during that run.
Hopkins was able to regain the lead 41-40 with 14:03 to play after McCullagh got an offensive rebound and finished the play with a layup. This would be the last time Hopkins had the lead though as the Seagulls went on a 14-3 run and did not turn back, handing Hopkins a 68-58 loss.
It proved to be the turnovers that made the difference. Hopkins allowed 28 points off turnovers including 19 in the second half. The Jays’ defense also allowed the Seagulls to go on many dominating runs.
Fairey said, “The scoring streaks could mostly be attributed to the turnovers. We turned the ball over a lot and they were able to score off of them, which made a big difference in the game.”
When asked about how the team plans to prevent these stretches of weak play from reoccurring in future games, senior captain Fatu Conteh said, “My team just has to do better at responding when the opposing team starts to go on a run. This means working harder on defense, for every lose ball, and for every rebound.”
McCullagh led the team with a career high 17 points, going 7-9 from the field with eight rebounds. Clark also had a career high with 11 points.
After the tough loss Hopkins went on to play Washington and Jefferson in the consolation game on Sunday.
The lead went back and forth in the first half, changing hands six times. At the half Washington and Jefferson had an eight point lead, which was their largest of the night.
The Jays could have let their loss from the previous night get to their heads, but instead they brought out a new level of intensity. “At half we really just had energy and knew we could win the game,” said McCullagh, “we were fired up and brought that energy into the second half. We knew we had to come out strong and make a run right away to catch up and throw them off.”
Coming out of the break Hopkins did just that. Down 52-43 with 16 minutes remaining, Fairey got things started for Hopkins with a jumper that led to a 15-2 Hopkins run that put the Jays in the lead.
The Presidents stayed right on the Jays' tail and were able to tie the game back up with less than seven minutes remaining, but the Jays never let them regain the lead and finished the second half outscoring the Presidents 43-30 to help the team to a 77-72 win.
The bench was the largest factor for the Jays as they accounted for more than half of the team’s points. Fairey came off the bench and led the team with a career high 18 points to help the Blue Jays bench score 46 points to the Presidents’ bench’s eight.
The performance from the bench showed how deep a team the Jays are and how they do not need to rely on a single player to win the game.
“The greatest aspect about this team is that we don't have one "go-to" person per say," said Conteh. “Everyone can contribute in their own way. We don't have to rely on one or two individuals to get points on the scoreboard or rebounds. This definitely shows how much depth we have.”
Junior Maggie Fruehan also scored double-digit points with 11 in only eight minutes of play.
The Jays were also able to cut down the number of turnovers allowed. The Presidents scored only 13 points off turnovers while Hopkins scored 20 off theirs.
After splitting the games this weekend, the Jays showed they still have some work to do, but if they continue to focus and play with determination they are certainly capable of a strong season.
