ST. DAVIDS, Pa. - In a hard-fought battle from start to finish, Eastern Women's Basketball (6-12, 3-7 MACC), despite a valiant effort, came up short in a 67-57 loss to the Widener Pride at the NEST. Taryn Woodson recorded her 10th double-double of the season, finishing with 16 points and 11 rebounds, while Jaelyn Harris made history, becoming the program's all-time leader in career three-pointers made.
Woodson continued her offensive tear, scoring in double figures for the 10th straight contest, while collecting her fourth straight double-double digit performance. Additionally, the Harrisburg native's seven made field goals tied a career-high.
Harris finished the game with 10 points, which included a pair of historic threes. After receiving a handoff from Woodson in the corner, Harris' ensuing trifecta with 3:42 remaining gave the senior guard 172 career triples, passing Gina DiDomenico, who hit 171 threes from 2011-2014. Ashya Gaddy also put together a nice performance coming off the bench, finishing with 12 points, while Brynn Schmidt added eight.
Mikayla Wright opened the contest with a triple, giving the Eagles an early 3-0 lead, but the Pride (11-5, 5-3 MACC) responded with a 13-1 scoring surge, taking a 13-4 lead at the 2:46 mark. A pair of Gaddy buckets, along with a pair of free throws from Tyerra Jarvis, trimmed the Eagles' deficit to five, but four straight free throws from the visitors made it a 19-12 Widener lead at the end of the first quarter.
The Pride built their lead back to nine at the 6:27 mark of the second frame, but Harris' back-to-back triples cut the Widener advantage back down to five. However, the Pride stemmed the tide, finishing the first half on a 7-2 run to take a 32-22 lead at halftime.
Widener built their advantage to as many as 12 points on three separate occasions in the third quarter, but the Eagles continued to battle, making it a single-digit deficit heading into the fourth thanks to a buzzer-beating layup from Harris.
The Eagles continued their push, cutting the Pride lead down to five, 46-41, on a Kayla Jefferson triple, but Widener responded with a three of its own, pushing its advantage back to 48-41. The Pride led 55-47 at the 4:40 mark, but the Eagles came roaring back on a four straight free throws from Schmidt. That was as close as Eastern would get, however, as Widener ended the game on 12-4 run to hand the Eagles their fourth straight defeat.
As a team, the Eagles finished 22-of-54 from the field (40.7 percent) and four-of-11 (36.4 percent) from beyond the arc.
Eastern Women's Basketball will back in action on Saturday, traveling to Maryland for a non-conference matchup with Salisbury. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:00 pm.
