BURLINGTON, Vt. -- The Towson women's dreams of a successful run through the America East tournament were short-circuited yesterday afternoon with their 58-46 loss to No. 2 seed Northeastern in the quarterfinals.
Towson, the No. 7 seed, gave life to its upset hopes when it grabbed a nine-point lead in the late minutes of the first half. And even after watching the Huskies surge back with a 22-3 run, the Tigers had a realistic chance to steal the game when they sliced a 10-point deficit to four midway through the second half.
But it all slipped through their hands.
"We should have won this game," said Towson center Jess Gordon, who scored a team-high 13 points. "We were right on top right on top. But we had a lull on offense and I think that hurt us."
So, too, did impatience, especially in the second half, when the Tigers made only nine of 32 shots from the field.
"We wanted to score so badly that we'd either do things too fast, or we'd try to force our shots," said Gordon. The Tigers weathered a 7-0 Northeastern opening run to take a 25-16 lead with 5: 15 left in the opening half.
Towson, which beat Boston University in the first round, 87-67, found great success by pushing the Huskies out of the middle to the perimeter, where they limited Northeastern to a handful of low-percentage, off-balance shots. Meanwhile, the Tigers put on an 11-2 burst to pull out to a 21-14 lead.
Mylisa Pilione hit for seven points during that span, from outside, and Faith Jones added six more from underneath.
The Tigers had reduced Huskies point guard Tesha Tinsley to little more than an afterthought. Tinsley, the former Western High School star, had scored just four points before she picked up her third foul with 8: 50 left, and sat out the rest of the half.
"I don't think we took advantage of that," said Towson coach Ellen Fitzkee. "I think our level of energy went down when she went out instead of rising to the occasion. As a result, we came into the locker room on a downer."
In fact, without Tinsley, Northeastern closed out the half with a 8-1 run, then took off on a 14-2 spree when she returned after the break, giving Northeastern a 38-28 lead.
Tinsley tossed in five of her 13 points then.
Towson managed to cut the lead to 40-38 and trailed 44-40 with 8: 53 remaining when Michele Lanigan hit a fall-away jumper.
But instead of mounting a comeback, the Tigers went the next 6: 50 without scoring, allowing Northeastern to put the game away. Northeastern center Lani Lawrence tossed in eight of her game-high 19 points down the stretch.
"We were stuck forever," said Lanigan. "We kept looking at the clock and it kept saying 40 [points.]"
TOWSON -- Jones 4-9 2-2 10, Lanigan 2-10 0-0 4, Pilione 5-12 0-0 12, Perry 2-6 0-0 4, Gordon 6-10 1-1 13, Wright 0-1 0-0 0, Simpson 0-1 0-0 0, McGowan 1-9 1-2 3, Stevens 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 20-58 4-5 46.
NORTHEASTERN -- Tinsley 4-10 4-4 13, Caruso 3-7 0-0 7, Palecek 3-13 2-3 9, Lawrence 7-12 5-7 19, Almengot 2-9 2-3 6, Burroughs 0-1 0-0 0, Hanewald 1-1 2-3 4. Totals 20-53 15-20 58.
Halftime--Towson, 26-24. 3-point goals--T 2-12 (Pilione 2-7, Gordon 0-1, Lanigan 0-2, McGowan 0-2); NE 3-11 (Palecek 1-1, Caruso 1-4, Tinsley 1-5, Almengot 0-1). Rebounds--T 35 (Pilione 12); NE 41 (Lawrence 13). Assists--T 9 (Gordon, Lanigan, Perry 2); NE 15 (Caruso 5). Fouled out--Pilione. Total fouls--T 20, NE 12. A--625.
Pub Date: 3/05/99