The AU women's basketball team lost Saturday to the Holy Cross Crusaders, 74-55, at Bender Arena, falling to 3-9 in the Patriot League.
Kaitlyn Foley led the Crusaders with a dominating performance down low, scoring 22 point and grabbing seven rebounds.
Nicole Ryan was the lone bright spot for the Eagles as she scored 16 points, including four 3-pointers.
"I understand that we're an undersized and overmatched team right now, but we didn't communicate, we didn't hit the boards and we didn't control our mistakes today," said Eagles coach Melissa McFerrin.
The Eagles came out hot and played even with the defending PL champs over the first ten minutes, taking a six-point lead with 13 minutes left. But a Foley layup ignited a 12-0 Crusader run over the next four minutes that left the Eagles down six, a lead they would never be able to overcome.
"We started out hot, and that was great, but as the first half went on, our defense and rebounding weren't there," McFerrin said.
In the second half, Holy Cross coach Bill Gibbons kept bringing weapons in and used his depth to beat the Eagles. Laura Aloisi scored 13 and was a consistent outside threat, and Jessica Conte put in 10 for the Crusaders.
Pam Stanfield scored 11 for AU, but shot just 4 of 16 from the field as she kept creating her own shot instead of dishing out to shooters like Ryan, who found the defense to be stifling in the second half.
"Its tough because I came in trying to score and pick up the slack for Tala [Hadavi] and they played us tough today," said the freshman sharpshooter Ryan.
Aside from Ryan, the Eagles didn't have much success at all shooting, as they shot an icy 35 percent. The Crusaders scorched the nets at a 54 percent clip, including 56 percent in the first half, to put the game out of reach before AU ever got into the locker room.
A bigger concern for McFerrin than the field-goal percentage has to be the free-thrown shooting. The Eagles shot 4 of 13 from the line, well below their season-average of 54 percent.
"We can control our free-throw shooting, and to come out and shoot 4 of 13 is unacceptable," McFerrin said. "There's not enough offense to overcome that kind of free-throw shooting."
In the second half, AU tried to get back in the game, pulling within eight on a Tara Williams shot with 13:31 left. She got fouled and missed the free throw, though, and Conte brought the ball up for Holy Cross and scored a layup. Foley followed that with three-straight buckets to put the nail in the coffin and give the Crusaders a commanding 16 point lead with 10 minutes left.
Aside from Ryan, Talicia Jackson played a very balanced game, scoring just three points, but grabbing nine rebounds, dishing out five assists and making five steals.
AU played its third game without leading scorer Hadavi, who is out with a knee injury. Center Abby Lipskis is still recovering from a back injury and played a relatively ineffective 19 minutes, shooting 0 of 6 from the field.
