The University of Rhode Island women’s basketball team split a pair of contests against the Saint Louis University Billikens on Sunday and the University of Massachusetts Minutewomen on Wednesday.
Despite leading for 38 minutes against the Billikens, URI lost 76-73, before taking down UMass for the second time this season, 86-64, on Wednesday. The Rams were looking to seek revenge against the Billikens after their semi-final loss in last year’s Atlantic 10 tournament, which saw the Rams go down with a final score of 59-56.
“We didn’t execute,” URI Head Coach Tammi Reiss said. “They were supposed to play today, you know, like their life depended on it. And I thought they did that for three quarters. And then the fourth quarter, they caved and folded.”
The Rams, who were without starting fifth-year guard Teisha Hyman due to injury, took to the Ryan Center court with the same tenacious energy shown from Reiss’ squad all season long. They started the game with a 7-0 lead within the first four minutes of play.
Two key contributors for the Rams early success were fifth-year Dee Dee Davis and fourth-year Tenin Magassa. Davis started the game with three baskets all made from behind the three point arc, and Magassa held down the paint with four offensive boards, three assists and six points total in the first half.
Rhody led by as much as 13 points in the first half, but Saint Louis kept it close heading into the second half with a score of 35-28.
The third quarter saw the two teams knot the score twice, but Rhody was able to hold the lead at seven until a buzzer beater jumper from SLU fifth-year Julia Martinez brought the Billikens within four, 56-51 heading into the fourth period of play.
The Rams’ scoring was very efficient, shooting 57.1% from the field and 36.8% from the 3-point-line. Their achilles heel, however, was their turnover margin, giving the ball up 25 times throughout all four quarters of play.
“Number one is take care of the basketball,” Reiss said. “And we didn’t do that, 25 turnovers might be close to a season high this year, this season, at home. So that’s number one. You know, you got to play better basketball than that.”
The close contest continued in the fourth quarter, coming down to a one point game in favor of URI with 1:28 left on the clock.
Saint Louis, however, was riding the game-leading performance of fourth-year forward Peyton Kennedy, who recorded 31 points on 21-32 shooting.
They were eventually able to gain the lead for the first time with under two minutes left and didn’t surrender it, defeating the Rams 76-73. Six Rams put up double-figure stat lines despite the loss.
Following their second-straight home loss, the Rams took on UMass on Wednesday, looking to fix many of their mistakes from their matchup against the Billikens.
One of their main areas of improvement was their turnover margin, as URI was able to limit their turnovers to only 11 on the night.
The Minutewomen kept the game close in the first quarter with a score of 15-11 in favor of URI, until a second quarter surge saw Rhody score 24 points opposed to UMass’ 15.
From there, the Rams did not take their foot off the gas, scoring 27 points in the third quarter and then another 20 in the fourth for a total of 86 points, their third-highest scoring outing this season. Their performance was marked by five players with 10 or more points, including a 22 point, 11 rebound double-double for fourth-year forward Mayé Toure. Second-year guard Ines Debroise also had a strong shooting night, scoring 14 points shooting 9-11.
Rhode Island now sits at 16-11, improving to 8-6 in conference play. They’ll be looking to continue their winning ways with an upcoming three-game stretch that includes conference frontrunners Davidson College, Saint Joseph’s University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The Rams face off against Davidson this Saturday at 1 p.m., and the game will be available for streaming on ESPN+.