On the heels of a come-from-behind win at Albany, Central Connecticut’s women’s basketball team returned home on Sunday where they defeated New Hampshire by a score of 56-47.

Despite not scoring over 17 points in any period, the Blue Devils shot a strong 48.8 percent from the floor.

Head coach Beryl Piper believed one of the keys to victory was 26 points on the fast-break.

“That’s a thing that we’ve been really working on, the first part of the fast break,” Piper said. “And if we don’t have that, being able to execute offense and get ball reversal and run good offense, because when we do that, we score at a high rate.”

After taking at least 11 three-pointers in their last three contests, Central attempted just eight, connecting on three. Piper said the change was due to success in the paint, where her team scored 26 points.

“Today was a game where we didn’t shoot a lot of threes,” Piper said. “We had been shooting a lot more, but today wasn’t about shooting the three, it was a game about being able to get to the rim and make layups, which is a little different than the games we’ve played in the past.”

Senior guard Kiana Patterson stayed hot for the Blue Devils, scoring a team-high 19 points on 60 percent shooting. She is now averaging 23 points per game in the team’s last three contests.

But the other Blue Devil who reached double-figures was sophomore guard Emma McCamus, who scored 13 points on 75 percent shooting, as well as making all seven free-throw attempts.

It is the fourth time this season McCamus has eclipsed double-digits but has failed to score more than six points in the other four contests.

“When she gets the ball and is aggressive offensively, she’ll have a good game. If she plays passive, it hurts her,” Piper said of McCamus’s inconsistent scoring.

Piper went on to call McCamus a “really good defensive player” and one of the teams’ x-factors.

The Blue Devils now have three wins on the season after failing to win a game in their non-conference slate last season. Piper says the confidence has done her team wonders as conference play rapidly approaches, and attributes the success to her team’s defense.

“At this point in the season, the things that we’re doing right now, we can double in the post, we can rotate on the ball and play ball screens all kinds of way, we couldn’t do that last year, at this time. We’re so far ahead defensively,” Piper said.

The team will now travel to Yale on Thursday before returning home against Hartford following the holiday. They will then begin Northeast Conference play.

Piper believes there is one spot, in particular, her team needs to improve in the next two games, citing Sunday’s contest.

“18 turnovers is too many turnovers,” she said. “We still have to make better decisions more often. Our goal is to always have less than 14 turnovers. The thing is understanding where we’re having our turnovers and how we correct that.”