Box Score MIAMI SHORES, Fla. - Heading into today's regular-season finale, the Eckerd women's basketball team knew it would need to find a way to limit the Sunshine State Conference's best perimeter shooting squad.
That proved to be a difficult task indeed, as Barry University shot 59.1 percent from 3-point range on its way to a senior day win over the Tritons, 85-72.
Head coach
Paul Honsinger thought his team defending the perimeter well at times, but wasn't quite as crisp on rotating as it could have been in other situations.
"We contested about half of their 3's," he said, "but we weren't up enough on the others."
The loss means the Tritons (12-13, 6-10 SSC) will enter next week's conference tournament as the No. 7 seed and will head to Melbourne to take on Florida Tech on Wednesday.
Eckerd, for its part today, was solid on the offensive end in an attempt to keep pace with the Bucs. EC shot 50 percent in the first half and made 10 3-pointers but couldn't quite take control against a Barry squad honoring nine seniors.
And in the end, it was some of those seniors that helped make the difference.
Amra Elezovic scored eight of her game-high 19 points in the fourth quarter while three other seniors - Jackie Perez (16 points), Ines Kerin (17 points) and Irene Sanchez (15 points) - also scored in double figures.
Eckerd led 24-23 after the first quarter and was still tied at 35-35 with 3:12 left in the first half, but Barry closed out on an 8-0 run and led by as many as 10 in the third quarter before the Tritons fought back to tie the game on three occasions, the last coming on a layup by
Elisabeth Giegerich to make it 54-54.
The Bucs, though, went back to the perimeter making 3-pointers on three straight possessions, and never surrendered the lead again.
"The game was very back-and-forth but they got loose too many times in the fourth quarter before we had to start fouling," said Honsinger.
The Tritons got a big performance from
Victoria Vine with 16 points and 12 rebounds.Â
Kacie Juday narrowly missed a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds while
Margaret Sundberg added 13 and
Ashley Folsom added 12.
Tip-off for the first round of the Sunshine State Conference tournament will be at 7:00 PM on Wednesday as Eckerd travels to face Florida Tech for the third time this season. The Panthers won both regular-season matchups including a 62-55 victory at home on January 30.
