Tech’s Women’s Basketball team fell to Boston College on Sunday up in Chestnut Hill, Mass., 62-53. The loss takes the Jackets to 19-7 on the season and 5-6 in conference play. This is the first time the Jackets have had a losing record in conference since their conference opener against North Carolina back in January.
Since starting out 16-2, the Jackets have stumbled heading towards the conclusion of the season, losing five out their last eight. All five of those losses have been at the hands of ACC opponents. The Jackets are 1-4 on the road in conference play with their sole victory coming at N.C. State where they were able to escape with a 67-63 win.
In contrast, the Jackets only have one road loss out-of-conference. They lost to Georgia back in December, falthering in the last few minutes of the game, 71-64.
Freshman forward Alex Montgomery led the Jackets with 26 points. The point total was over double her average of 11.4 points. Fellow freshman Iasia Hemingway was the only other Jacket to hit double-digit points with 10. While the Jackets had only one less field goal than the Eagles, BC’s field goal percentage was nearly 20 points higher than Tech’s.
In contrast to Tech’s concentrated scoring between the two freshman, Boston College was able to spread the offense and balance the attack. They had four players in double figures in points. Freshman center Carolyn Swords led the Eagles with 14 total points. This was followed by freshman guard Jaclyn Thoman with 13 points. BC also out rebounded the Jackets 30-21. Of the 30 rebounds by BC, 26 came off the defensive end. Six players from Boston College had at least 3 rebounds.
The game started off slowly for the Jackets. On the first play of the game, Thoman hit a three for Boston College to give the Golden Eagles an early lead. It was the first of six threes the Eagles hit during the game. With just over 11 minutes to play in the first half, BC gained its largest lead of the game at 12 points. But the Jackets brought the deficit down to five before the half, going into the locker room trailing 31-26.
In the second half, the Jackets were able to make runs to close the gap. An 11-2 run by the Jackets cut the Eagles’s lead down to two with ten minutes left to play. After the Golden Eagles came back and reestablished a seven point lead, the Jackets attempted another run, cutting the margin down to one with just under 4:30 to play. Still, the Jackets were never able to capture the lead from the Eagles at any point during the game, though they came close several times.
The Jackets hope to begin a turn-around on Sunday when they travel up to Clemson to take on the Tigers before coming home next Friday to take on Virginia Tech in their last home game of the season. They then visit Virginia for the last game of the season before they head to Greensboro, N.C. for the ACC Tournament.