Women’s Basketball Defeats Stony Brook in OT

By Brittany Ehrlich

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Although Syracuse Women’s Basketball was able to pull off the victory against the Seawolves on Sunday, the Orange fell behind in the second quarter and had to make a comeback.

Head coach Quentin Hillsman blamed himself for the Orange drought in the second. The Orange only scored 8 points in the quarter.

“I mismanaged…totally mismanaged that game definitely,” Hillsman said. “So that’s on me.”

Tiana Mangakahia finished the game with 29 points and 11 assists. Hillsman said the work his team put in definitely made the difference.

“[They] totally bailed me out,” he said. “Without them we would be having a different conversation.”

Stony Brook at one point in the second went on a 12-1 run to take its first lead of the game with 3:07 remaining in the half. The Orange also trailed in the final minutes of the game, but Hillsman and his team weren’t ready to quit.

“A lot of things that happened right,” Hillsman said. “They all went right… My staff really helped me. They told me who to foul and we fouled her. She went one for four.”

Hillsman said he believes there were certain moments or areas of the game that he could’ve done better, and that’s why he takes the blame for the poor performance in the second.

“I probably could’ve called a timeout, could’ve managed things different,” the Orange head coach said. “You know hindsight, twenty-twenty. Maybe a timeout stops the run. It’s that reckless confidence in my team that I spoke about last week.”

Miranda Drummond, who scored 23 points, was confused when she heard her head coach put the blame on himself.

“It’s like a team,” Drummond said. “We all struggled…yeah I don’t know why he said that.”

For the eighth straight game, Drummond recorded a double-digit outing. This is the third time this season that Drummond has recorded 20 or more points.

So far, Drummond and Mangakahia have shown a strong connection with each other, leading the Orange in almost every game. Against Stony Brook, Drummond and Mangakahia combined for 52 of Syracuse’s 81 points, marking the second game in a row that the pair has totaled 50 plus combined points.

Another positive on the Sunday afternoon game was Amaya Finklea-Guity, who had a career-high 10 rebounds.

Syracuse did have a strong start to the game. At one point the Orange led by 17 points in the first quarter. SU shot 50% in the first quarter and 57.1% at the three-point line. Miranda Drummond made back-to-back three pointers in the hot start.

The Orange’s next game in Wednesday, December 3 against Colgate at 7 PM. The Raiders are currently 4-4 on the season.