Newark, Del. – A pair of buckets from Delaware's Erika Brown in the closing stages pushed the Blue Hens past the Robert Morris University women's basketball team, 67-65, this evening from Acierno Arena.
Robert Morris (3-5, 0-0 NEC) held a lead for nearly 36 of the 40 minutes, but Brown's late heroics provided to be the difference. The Delaware (5-2, 0-0 CAA) guard first hit a fall away runner off the glass to put the hosts in front with 30 seconds left, and after a pair of free throws from junior forward Megan Smith, Brown got into the lane and laid in the game-winner with 4.3 seconds on the clock.
"We played the game for 95 percent of the time," said first-year head coach Charlie Buscaglia. "But we didn't close out the end of the first half well and we didn't close out the game well. You can work hard for 38 minutes out of the 40 and still lose games, and we're proving that right now. We have to be mentally tougher and need to understand that when the going gets tough, we have to get going."
Looking to rebound from a 0-2 showing at the FIU Thanksgiving Tournament, the Colonials opened the game with a purpose, scoring on their first five possessions to go ahead 12-8. After their first trip down the floor without a point, senior guard Janee Brown and junior center Mikalah Mulrain made a bucket to get the offense back on track. The Blue Hens closed the quarter with a 10-6 run over the final 2:51, trimming the deficit to 21-18 at the end of the frame.
The hosts' would go into a bit of a dry spell in the second quarter however, as the RMU defense held Delaware without a field goal for over six minutes. During that stretch, the Colonials would expand their advantage to 34-23, thanks to a couple of trifectas from senior guard Anna Niki Stamolamprou and a trey from her fellow fourth-year Rebeca Navarro. The Blue Hens again finished strong, scoring seven of the half's final eight points to make it 35-32 at the break.
Navarro came out firing to begin the third quarter, burying two three-pointers in the first 1:23. Brown had a pair of answers from deep and in the paint, but Stamolamprou and Navarro copied the Delaware guard to regain the eight-point edge. The teams continued to trade buckets over the next couple possessions before Mulrain split two foul shots to make it 51-42 with 2:19 remaining in the stanza. The hosts once again pushed ahead late, tallying six points to RMU's three over the final 2:06.
Smith opened the fourth quarter with an old-fashioned three-point play, putting the visitors up 56-48. A 5-0 run by the Blue Hens made it a one-possession game, but Navarro answered with her fifth trifecta of the contest. After Sade Chatman made two free throws, freshman center Nneka Ezeigbo kept the Colonials ahead by six with a layup. However, Brown followed that up with a trey and Nicole Enabosi tallied one in the paint to make it 61-60.
"We were up for most of the game and they'd come at us, but we would put a run together and go back up eight," said Buscaglia. "So we kept battling until it got to that time where we needed to be tough. We looked around for someone to bail us out and we had to pull up our shorts there and get a stop, then come down the court and get a bucket. We turned the ball over at the end and did some foolish things, and at the end of the day I put it down on mental toughness."
Enabosi gave Delaware its first lead since the 9:32 mark of the first quarter with two foul shots, and Makeda Nicholas split a pair to set the score at 63-61 in favor of the hosts. After Brown's layup with 4.3 seconds remaining made it 67-65, the Colonials set up their final play and got a shot off, but Smith's three-point attempt was off the mark.
Navarro led the RMU scoring effort, tallying a team-high 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting and a 5-of-8 performance from distance.
"When you play a zone against [Rebeca], she's going to hurt you," said Buscaglia. "She did a nice job catching and shooting along with some other good things throughout. However, at the end of the game we need to band together as a team and get stops and buckets in crunch time, and she was part of that."
Stamolamprou finished with 12 points and eight rebounds. Ezeigbo added a career-high 11 points on 5-of-8 from the field, while Smith turned a scoreless first half into a near double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds.
Brown paced all scorers with 18 points, followed by Enabosi's 14-point effort for the Blue Hens. Chatman and Hannah Jardine were also in double-figures for the hosts, scoring 12 and 10 points, respectively.
Robert Morris returns home for the first time since the season's opening weekend when it hosts Howard at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4.
