Courtesy of UMBC Athletic Communications
GAINESVILLE,
Fla.-After a strong first half, the UMBC women's basketball team (20-12)
struggled in the second and fell to host Florida (19-14) by a score of 59-47
Friday evening in the first round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament
at the O'Connell Center.
Junior
center Topé Obajolu (Randallstown, Md./Archbishop Carroll), an America
East all-conference third-team selection, led the Retrievers with 16 points,
including 12 in the first half, while junior forward Erin Brown
(Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman), a first-team pick, tallied 15 on five 3-pointers.
Playing
in the final game of her career, senior forward Meghan Colabella (Upper
Montclair, N.J./Montclair) finished one point shy of a double-double with nine
points and 13 rebounds. She ends her career with 600 career rebounds, the 13th
Retriever ever to reach that mark.
Florida
led, 14-8, after six minutes, but a 7-0 UMBC run, capped by a 3-pointer by
junior guard Michelle Kurowski (Hicksville, N.Y./Hicksville) gave the
Retrievers their first lead of the game at the 10:47 mark. The teams then
traded triples for the next three and a half minutes as the lead see-sawed back
and forth. Obajolu hit a layup with two seconds remaining in the first half to
give the Retrievers a 32-31 halftime advantage.
UMBC
came out of the locker room hot, scoring the first seven points of the period
to take a game-high eight-point led, 39-31, after just two minutes. But the
Gators responded with a 20-3 run over the next 6:20 to go up 51-42 at the 11:43
mark.
The
Retrievers trailed by just five, 52-47, with 6:25 remaining after five straight
foul shots by Colabella, but Florida held UMBC without a point for the
remainder of the game.
After
shooting 53.8 percent (14-for-26) in the first half, the Retrievers made just
four of 26 field goals (15.4 percent) in the second, with just one in the final
18 minutes, and they finished at 34.6 percent for the contest. Florida shot
43.1 percent in the game.
Guard
Jordan Jones led the Gators with 18 points, while guard Jaterra Bonds added 13.
Despite
losing back-to-back games for the first time since Dec. 10-18, the Retrievers
matched a school record with 20 victories and earned their second-ever
postseason berth after winning the America East regular-season title with a
13-3 conference mark. UMBC will return 82 percent of its offense next season,
including its top three scorers in Kurowski (14.6 ppg), Brown (14.3 ppg) and
Obajolu (10.6 ppg).