Pirates' Season Ends With Loss To Houston | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of ECU Sports.


    FORT WORTH, TEXAS     Shots from beyond the arc were the difference as the No. 6 seed East Carolina women's basketball fell to No. 3 seed Houston 73-63 on Tuesday night in the AAC Championship Quarterfinals.

    ECU finishes its season with an 8-14 record. The Pirates were led in scoring by Maddie Moore, who finished with 16 points, and Taniyah Thompson who had 15. Moore just missed a double-double, grabbing nine rebounds. Lashonda Monk tied the AAC Championship record with six steals, while also adding eight points, four assists and four rebounds. Alexsia Rose tied her career-high with nine points and added six rebounds and three assists.

    The Cougars had five players score in double-figures, led by 19 points from Laila Blair. Bria Patterson and Miya Crump each added 14 while Jazmaine Lewis (12 points) and Britney Onyeje (10 points) rounded out the Houston starters.

    It was a game of runs for both teams. Houston got off to a quick start, pushing its lead out to seven in the first quarter. Thompson provided much of the early offense for ECU, scoring six points in the first frame.

    A quick 6-0 run for Houston to open the second quarter, powered by a triple from both Patterson and Blair, put Houston up 25-15. But East Carolina fought back with a 10-0 run of its own. Rose made a pair of layups during the run, while Thompson, Moore and Dominique Claytor each contributed two points.

    After the teams traded quick 4-0 spurts, Houston had the final exclamation point on the first half. After a Blair layup put the Cougars up by four, Houston got a stop on defense and then Patterson hit a deep three at the buzzer to make the score 38-31.

    Despite holding Houston to just three made field goals in the third quarter, ECU saw its deficit increase in the frame, ballooning up to 14 with 1:21 left. The majority of the scoring for both teams came at the free throw line, with Houston shooting 10-of-12 there while East Carolina was 6-of-8. Moore made sure the deficit was not larger, with the junior forward scoring seven points in the third.

    Trailing by 11 heading into the fourth quarter, ECU needed to go on a run of its own and the defense helped do just that. The Pirates allowed just two Houston points over the first four minutes of the final frame. That helped spark an 8-2 run punctuated by a pair of layups from Monk to make it 58-53.

    Unfortunately for East Carolina, after the two teams traded layups, the three-point arc once again came into play. Crump nailed a triple to push the lead back to eight with 4:25 to go. ECU continued to press and even cut the deficit to six on a pair of occasions, but Houston shot 8-of-12 at the charity stripe to close the game out.

    The Pirates had a slight advantage in field-goal percentage, shooting 25-of-69 (.362) while Houston shot 22-of-61 (.361), but the Cougars shot 7-of-22 (.318) from beyond the three-point arc while ECU was 0-of-17 from three, the first time since Jan. 8, 2018 that the Pirates have not hit at least one triple, a span of 97 games. ECU had an advantage in turnovers, forcing 23 turnovers while giving the ball away 18 times, but the Cougars held a 48-39 lead on the boards and shot 22-of-29 from the free throw line compared to 13-of-19 for the Pirates.