SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – A tight opening half, a double-digit deficit, and a chance to tie it at the buzzer highlighted a hard-fought contest for the Humboldt State women's basketball team. The Lumberjacks (1-4) were unable to complete the comeback, and fell to Dominican (4-1) on Wednesday night, 76-73.
"We'll have a quarter here and there where we play well, but we haven't been able to string those together for a full game," said Head Coach
Joddie Gleason. "We let them hear it after the third, and the girls responded in the fourth quarter. We had 26 points off turnovers and that's encouraging."
Kiana Brown drained a three-pointer as time expired in the opening period to push the Jacks back on top after the first quarter. Brown was one of eight Lumberjacks to score in the first quarter and helped pushed the Green and Gold ahead with the seventh lead change of the period.
HSU was up 29-27 with 6:49 remaining in the first half before Dominican went on a 10-0 run over the next 3:02 to take a lead.
Nyaa Davis' three-pointer put an end to the massive run, but left the Jacks in a deficit going into the half, 42-35.
Amanda Kunst, who has scored in double-figures in each game thus far, nearly had a double-double through 20 minutes of play. The senior filled the box score with nine points and eight boards before intermission.
After allowing the deficit to grow to as high as 14 points in the third quarter, Humboldt opened the fourth with an 11-4 run of its own. The Jacks kept chipping away throughout the final period. With 2:55 remaining in the game,
Neika Puryear stole the ball off an inbounds pass and fed it to an open Brown for a layup, cutting the Penguin lead to three. The home side hit a pair of free throws to go up five with just 1:14 on the clock. HSU kept clawing back and used a pair of
A'Jaee Foster free throws to make it a one-point game, 74-73.
With the Dominican advantage back up to three, Humboldt had six seconds and the ball to try and force overtime. The Green and Gold had two looks from three in the game's final ticks, but were unable to convert and dropped their third straight road contest.
Kunst recorded double-figure rebounds for just the second time in her four-year career, and the first time since grabbing 13 boards at San Francisco State on Feb. 14, 2014. Her 14 and 13 performance led the Lumberjacks in both categories. Puryear added 13 points of her own after going a perfect 6-for-6 from the charity stripe.
"Amanda has been very consistent," said Gleason. "We know what we are going to get night in and night out, not only scoring, but chasing down rebounds and making plays."
The Jacks will remain in the Bay Area for Thursday and Friday, before matching up with Holy Names on Saturday afternoon. The game will tip at 2 p.m. at Tobin Gymnasium in Oakland.
