NORFOLK, VA --- The Howard University women's basketball team kept the game close through almost 30 minutes, but in the end, Alyssa Bennett and the experience factor proved to be too much as No. 1 seed Hampton pulled away to a 71-55 win over No. 8 seed Howard in the quarterfinal round of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) tournament at the Norfolk Scope Arena. The Lady Bison finish the season at 11-20.

Howard lost to the Lady Pirates (26-4) twice to the regular season in close games and today's match mirrored those two contests.  Although the Lady Bison never led, they trailed only 31-24 at the half, featuring a balanced attack led by sophomore center Victoria Gonzalez's seven first half points and six each from redshirt freshman guard Te'Shya Heslip and graduate student forward Shavonne Duckett.  Hampton was able to hold the lead due to the scoring of Bennett with 13 and Malia Tate-DeFreitas' 10.

In the second half, the resilient Lady Bison refused to go away against the four-time defending MEAC tournament champions.

Helped by the scoring of Gonzalez, Duckett, Heslip and junior forward Cheyenne Brown, Howard pulled within reach at 44-40 with 11:05 mark remaining.
"This was a tough, tough game," said Hampton head coach David Six, the MEAC Coach of the Year. "They played us tough twice this year and they are probably one of the few teams in the MEAC that are smaller than we are. So, it's very hard for us to match up with them defensively. I thought that Coach [Adams] has done a great job with them. I thought they fought hard and I also thought that we woke up in the second half and finally got some things going and got the butterflies out and was able to take the lead."

The four-point deficit was as close as Howard would get. Bennett, the senior forward and MEAC Defensive Player of the Year, took over and fueled a 17-2 run over a six-minute stretch to give her team a 61-42 advantage.

"We let it get away from us in the second half," said Howard first year head coach Tennille Adams. "I felt Hampton did a really good job of attacking the defense and getting to the foul line. It's obvious they were 20-for-29 from the free throw line and 23 offensive rebounds. It's hard to compete with that. They switched some things up on us. I thought we made a good run in the first half and made adjustments offensively, but we couldn't get some things to connect in the second half. Again, free throws and the rebounding that pretty much sums up the game."

Hampton finished with 23 offensive rebounds.

Bennett finished with a game-high 30 points while also grabbing 16 rebounds,  Tate-DeFreitas chipped in with 19 and Kenia Cole contributed 11.

"She's an athletic guard and she shoots the ball fairly well from the perimeter so she's a match-up problem for most teams," said Adams of Bennett. "Again she's good and there's really no other way to say it."
 
After playing their second game in less than 24 hours, the Lady Bison appeared to tire against Hampton and it resulted in several turnovers and missed shots around the basket.  Howard missed 18 of their shots in the second half and committed 11 turnovers that the Lady Pirates converted into 11 points.
                
Gonzalez finished with 16 points to lead her team while Duckett added 11 and Heslip contributed 10 and six assists.

This was Coach Tennille Adams' first year as head coach at Howard, leading a team with no returning player having extensive MEAC tournament experience heading into the game.

"To take over a team that didn't sign up for Coach Adams' system and philosophy, these guys did a great job of buying in throughout the course of the year," said Coach Adams. 

"Our record is not indicative of the progress that we made during the season. Looking at a lot of our games, we'd lose by a point here, five points there. The first few times we played Hampton, we played them extremely well. So, I thought we did a lot of great things; there are a lot of positives for us to hang our hat on moving forward."

"We have a really young squad and I think we have one of the best point guards [in Heslip] and post players [in Gonzalez] in this conference. Unfortunately we didn't get to see as much as that this year as we would have liked, but I guarantee moving forward these guys will make all-conference teams [in the future] so I'm very happy to have these two young ladies with us and I look forward to the future of the Lady Bison."