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The RV/No. 23 Miami Hurricanes women’s basketball team won in a 76-73 nail bitter against Boston College on Sunday the Watsco Center.
Sophomore guard Mykea Gray led the way with 21 points, helping the Hurricanes (18-4, 6-1 ACC) overcome a fourth-quarter defcit.
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“The crowd at Miami helped us win a basketball game today,” Miami head coach Katie Meier said of the atmosphere down the stretch. “That is a big moment for me and . . . the team needed that, we needed that. We need to be uplifted a bit.”
Redshirt junior guard Laura Cornelius scored 16 points and finished 9-of-10 at the line. Senior forward/center Emese Hof scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds, one short of her seventh double-double of the season.
The Hurricanes won the game from the free throw line. Miami’s 34 made free throws were one shy of the program record and three more than any ACC team this season. That many free throws meant the Hurricanes were able to pick up a lot of fouls.
“I don’t usually point that out on the scout, but it really jumped off the page when I was prepping them,” Meier said of Boston College’s propensity to foul. “[Assistant coach Tia Jackson] was giving me the cuts and . . . it was something that we thought about, but you got to move the ball; you got to go north, south, east and west. It’s not like they just foul you. You’ve got to move it, attack and jump. So, when we played with pace I think we drew fouls. When we didn’t, we were shooting over them and that’s what they wanted us to do.”
The Hurricanes are off to their best start in ACC play since the 2011-12 season. They travel on Thursday at 7 p.m., to take on No. 22/19 Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla.
First loss stings for M/W Tennis
The University of Miami women’s tennis team lost their first match of the season in a 4-3 heartbreaker to No. 20 Northwestern Sunday evening at the Combe Tennis Center, in Evanston, Ill.
No. 17 Miami (4-1) fell into an early 2-0 hole but rallied for a 3-2 lead. The Wildcats took the final two matches to win the ITA Kick-Off Weekend site title. With the victory, Northwestern earns a spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship.
Northwestern (2-1) opened doubles play with a 6-3 victory by Rheeya Doshi and Caroline Pozo over Carla Girbau and senior Ana Madcur. Senior Daniella Roldan and sophomore Ulyana Shirokova evened the doubles tally with a 6-4 win over Julie Byrne and Hannah McColgan.
NU’s Clarissa Hand and Lee Or rallied from a 1-3 deficit to top freshman Daevenia Achong and junior Estela Perez-Somarriba 4-3 and clinch the doubles point.
Achong, Shirokova and seventh-ranked Perez-Somarriba all won their singles matches for the Hurricanes.
Miami host Baylor on Feb.1 at 1 p.m.
Meanwhile, the men’s tennis fell to Texas 4-0 in the second round of ITA Kick-Off Weekend. The No. 8 Longhorns entered the match as the top seed in the tournament.
“Tough loss against a good Texas team,” Miami head coach Aljosa Piric said. “We had a couple opportunities in doubles. We won on [court] 2, lost on [court] 1 and then had a tiebreaker at No. 3. We had a couple opportunities in the tiebreaker to really get a point and gain momentum heading into singles, but we dropped that.”
The lone bright spot was sophomores Bojan Jankulovski and Adria Soriano Barrera improving to 3-0 as a pair this season, beating Longhorns duo Colin Markes and Leonardo Telles, 6-1.
“Other than really a couple of courts, Francisco winning a set on 3 and Dane at No. 4, I just felt like we didn’t have any wind behind our backs during singles play. I felt like we could never really get going,” Piric said after dropping the close doubles point. “And that is a credit to Texas. They are a good team, they are a top team, and they beat us today. We have to mature and we have to learn from this.”
The Hurricanes will have another top-10 team to contend with on the road, when they travel to Starkville, Miss., to take on No. 3 Mississippi State at 2 p.m. on Friday. Following the match, Miami will play Jackson State in a neutral site at 6 p.m.
Track torches Texas Tech Classic
The Hurricanes track and field throws team registered three personal bests in the women’s shot put Saturday in the final day of the Texas Tech Classic.
Freshman Hannah-Sophia Hall placed second on her third attempt with a mark of 14.25m. Junior Sherry Lubin finished in fourth with a mark of 13.82m in her final attempt. Freshman Selina Dantzler also earned a PR on her third attempt at 15.85m, sophomore Debbie Ajagbe finished fourth with a mark of 15.11m and senior Zakiya Rashid made her first appearance of the indoor season with a personal best mark of 15.00m.
During Saturday’s events, the women’s 4x400m relay team made up of Anna Runia, Brittny Ellis, Kayla Johnson and Samantha Gonzalez placed fourth with a time of 3:35.73.
The men’s relay team, consisting of McKinley Brown, Davonte Fuller, Tyrees Moulton and Thomas Burns, finished fifth with a time of 3:11.27, good for the third fastest time in program history.
Miami travels to Virginia Tech for the “Doc Hale” Elite Meet on Feb. 1 – 2.