An unbelievable finish that saw three lead changes in the last minute of play made for quite a show Sunday in the weekend's doubleheader at Alumni Arena.
Unfortunately for women's basketball, UB point guard Stephanie Bennett's heavily contested, last-second shot fell just short, giving the Syracuse Orange a 64-63 victory.
"I just got to make it," said Bennett, a sophomore.
The team also lost on Friday to Canisius College, 77-61, which means the Bulls have opened their season 0-2 for the third year in a row.
Despite the miss, Bennett had a great game Sunday, running new head coach Linda Hill-MacDonald's offense perfectly for six points, eight assists and three rebounds.
While not getting much production off the bench, UB was able to ride its starters to a 36-33 lead at halftime.
Sophomore forward Heather Turner was dominant, particularly in the first half, putting up 22 points and nine rebounds. Only three of those points, however, came with 11 minutes left in the game.
"They started to collapse more on me," Turner said. "That's something I'm going to have to get used to and work with. I'm going to work with my outside guard, Stephanie, to try to open them up, occupy the defense down low so we can get more outside shots."
The Bulls were down by six with just over three minutes remaining when senior guard Brooke Meunier drove for two consecutive buckets and helped force a Syracuse timeout, wrapping up the ball carrier.
Meunier finished with 10 points, four boards and an assist.
The biggest obstacle standing in the Bulls' way was Syracuse center Vaida Sipaviciute, who played all 40 minutes for the Orange, going 10-17 for 23 points. The 6-foot-4-inch sophomore pulled down 11 rebounds and, even more impressively, registered five blocks en route to the victory.
Getting her first collegiate start, Jamie Schiebner got the first double-double of the team's season. The UB freshman finished with 10 points and 13 rebounds to go along with her three assists.
"I'm proud of this team for the effort they put out there and sustained for 40 minutes," Hill-MacDonald said. "We did a lot of things right today. We did enough to win the game and unfortunately the end result didn't come out that way. But I'm really proud of how much improvement there was from two days ago when we played."
The loss in Friday's season opener extended the Canisius' winning streak over UB to three straight, as the Bulls were never able to recover from a 15-2 Griffins run midway through the first half.
"I thought our team showed a lot of heart," Hill-MacDonald said. "Even at the end of the game when we were down and a little undersized, I thought we played hard and tonight we just played a team that shot the ball extremely well."
Canisius shot 47 percent from the field, and a deadly 10 of 20 from behind the arc.
UB may have simply been outmatched in Hill-MacDonald's first game as head coach. The Griffins returned all twelve players from last season's NCAA tournament team, which won its conference.
Bennett and Turner were the stars for the Bulls, draining 10 and nine points respectively, with Turner pulling down 10 rebounds.
Next up for the team is Auburn on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Alumni Arena.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
