UMass Minutewomen (11-4, 1-1 A10) falls in a back and forth battle to the Rhode Island Rams (11-3, 2-0 A10) 75-68 on Wednesday night. UMass faced a really strong team in the Rams, and the Rams now extend their win streak against UMass in the all time series to three games, dating back to UMass being swept last season by the Rams in regular season play. UMass still leads in the all-time series history 49-40 over Rhode Island.
For the fourth game in a row the Minutewomen got off to a really slow start and found themselves behind quickly against Rhode Island. By the end of the first quarter UMass was trailing by 12 points, with the score being 19-7. The first quarter was sloppy and calls were all over the place for both teams with Rhode Island getting the calls in their favor. Two technical fouls were assessed to UMass in the first half, one on Makennah White and one on Stefanie Kulesza. The technical on White was for her complaining to the referee who did not call a foul on Rhode Island when she was clearly pushed to the floor by the Rhode Island. Kulesza’s technical was because she got to the scorer’s table too late and ran onto the court while the ball was in play, leaving UMass with too many players on the court.
UMass did outscore Rhode Island in both the second and third quarters and had a two point lead going into the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, the two point lead did not last long, and Rhode Island came back and took the lead and never looked back on UMass.
Sam Breen led the way for the Minutewomen in both scoring and rebounding with 20 points and 13 rebounds adding another double-double to go with the other 47 that she has in her career. Breen is coming off of a historic game for both herself and for UMass with getting her first ever triple-double and being only the second Minutewomen to have a triple-double in UMass history which was from 22 years ago. Ber’Nyah Mayo scored 11 points and 8 assists almost getting a double-double herself. Besides Breen and Mayo in double figures the only other Minutewomen to score double figures was Destiney Philoxy with 10 points and 4 steals.
Rhode Island was led by Maye Toure with 20 points and 10 rebounds, giving herself a double-double. Madison Hattix-Covington had 17 points and 10 rebounds, also giving herself a double-double. Sophie Phillips was hot from behind the arch scoring all 15 of her points from three. The Rams were able to shoot 14-30 from 3-point range giving themselves 46.7% from behind the arch.
Next up for Rhode Island they travel back to the Ryan Center and face LaSalle (9-7, 0-1 A10) on Sunday January 8th at 2pm. LaSalle leads the all-time series matchup against the Rams 10-29. Rhode Island looks to extend the win streak over LaSalle in the all-time series match up to four games.
Next up for UMass they travel to Loyola Chicago (6-9, 1-1 A10) for a 3pm EST tip-off on Saturday January 7th. This is the first meeting between the Ramblers and UMass. This is Loyola’s first season in the Atlantic 10 conference, and they are coming from the Missouri Valley Conference.
