The Central Connecticut women’s basketball played the first home game of their 2018-19 season against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks this past Saturday.

The Blue Devils started the game shooting 44.4 percent from the field overall and over 50 percent from three. Senior guard Sydney Hines made a three with 10 seconds left in the first quarter, to which Lehigh responded just before the buzzer to give the Mountain Hawks a 24-20 lead.

In the second quarter, the Blue Devils tied the game at 24 before Lehigh began to run a full-court press. The pressure paid off for Lehigh, as they forced the Blue Devils into four turnovers. Central also struggled to defend beyond the arc, allowing Lehigh to make over 55 percent from three in the second quarter, which they won 31-17. At halftime, the game was 55-37.

Head coach Beryl Piper commented on the Blue Devils’ struggles in the second quarter.

“We struggled in our transition defense, the last five minutes after the media timeout they went on a 22-9 run. They really hurt us and hit a ton of threes,” Piper said.

Central’s woes continued in the second half as the Blue Devil offense struggled to produce, not recording a field goal for the first seven minutes of the third quarter and only recording three total field goals in the period. CCSU also recorded three turnovers in the quarter, leaving the game at 75-48.

The fourth quarter was the only quarter in which the Blue Devils outscored the Mountain Hawks, by a score of 14-13. In the final period, Central forced Lehigh into five turnovers as well as four field goals, opposed to Lehigh’s two. Despite CCSU’s strong fourth, the game ended 88-62.

When asked about the second half, Piper said, “Defensively transition wise we did a better job taking care of them scoring in transition. We needed to be able to score the basketball and we struggled.”

Seniors Andi Lydon and Kiana Patterson combined for 31 of the team’s 62 points. Fellow senior Hines added 11 points as well.

Going forward, Piper understands the need to straighten out defensive issues, especially in transition.

“We’ll watch film, we’ll look and see who’s in the game and what was going wrong and why it was happening. We work on transition defense a lot,” Piper said.

The Blue Devils fall to 0-2 overall in the early season and will look to bounce back on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at Rutgers against the Scarlet Knights in another non-conference test. The game against Rutgers is the first of a three-game road trip for the Blue Devils.