The Central women’s basketball team could not defeat the Sacred Heart University Pioneers on Saturday in Detrick Gymnasium, losing 73-55.
With the loss, Central dropped to 5-8 in the Northeast Conference, while the Pioneers remain in first place with a 12-1 record.
Sophomore guard Samora Watson and junior guard Amaya Williams led the Blue Devils in scoring with 13 points each.
With the Pioneers leading in the conference, Watson said the team let the little things slip away.
“This game did not go the way we wanted it to,” she said. “We are going to move forward and try to harp on the little things that we missed today.”
The Blue Devils kept the score tight for most of the game. Heading into halftime, the Pioneers led 35-30.
Central’s head coach, Way Veney, had an important message for the team before the second half.
“She told us to keep grinding and play hard,” Watson said. “Play with heart and win it for us.”
At the end of the game, Veney said the team played hard but did not play smart.
“I felt like, defensively, we needed to be a lot better,” she said. “We talked about going into the game containing dribble penetration and how we wanted to shut down [Ny’Ceara] Pryor, and I thought our effort in that regard wasn’t what it needed to be.”
Sacred Heart’s Ny’Ceara Pryor led the Pioneers with 26 points.
Central’s turnover struggles helped put the Pioneers up on the scoreboard, as the Blue Devils lost the ball 22 times.
Veney vocalized the importance of moving on and looking ahead to the next game.
“We have to move on to the next game. This game is over,” she said. “We got to move on. We still have the same goals, and our team knows what those are.”
The Blue Devils will return to Detrick Gymnasium on March 7 to take on the Farleigh Dickinson University Knights for the final game of the regular season.
