MANCHESTER, N.H. – The New Haven women's basketball turned around a 19 point halftime deficit to take a lead late in the game and put themselves in a position to win it at the buzzer when junior Sabira Ahayeva (Minsk, Belarus/Minsk #27) converted a jumper as the buzzer sounded to give the Chargers a 69-67 road victory over Saint Anselm.
The buzzer beater for Ahayeva was her only two points of the night as the junior earned her first start of the season and played a crucial role, adding to that late bucket a pair of rebounds and an assist. Overall, for the game, New Haven was led by graduate post player Aurora Deshaies (Syracuse, N.Y./Bishop Ludden) and junior guard Charlotte Bassett (Glastonbury, Conn./Glastonbury) who each finished with 18 points while Makaela Johnson (Hamden, Conn./Hamden) rounded out the leading trio with a dozen.
"I challenged the the team at halftime to play and fight harder," said head coach Debbie Buff. "We talked about getting one at a time - stop and score. We played with pace in the second half and they executed on the offensive end. Our staff is so proud of the fight they demonstrated the entire second half. This is a great team win!"
Deshaies saw the majority of her 18 points come in the second half where she picked up 15 of her points with that scoring coming on 8-of-10 from the field and 2-of-4 at the free throw line. Bassett closed out the game shooting 6-of-10 from the field, with four of her six field goals from beyond the three point arc while she was also 2-of-4 at the line.
For the game, New Haven shot 52.1 percent from the field, connecting on 25-of-48 attempts with seven of the 25 buckets from long range. In addition, the Chargers were 12-of-18 at the free throw line. The best shooting for the road warrior Chargers came in the second half as they shot 53.8 percent (7-of-13) in the third quarter and 61.5 percent (8-of-13) in the final period.
Defensively, the Chargers turned around from a first half where they allowed the Hawks to shoot over 61 percent combined in the first two periods to hold the home team to under 35% in the second 20 minutes combined. The Chargers also forced Saint Anselm into 11 turnovers and scored 16 points off of those miscues.
The Hawks did complete the victory in the battle of the boards by a 29-24 margin with New Havel led by its 1,000+ rebound player in Deshaies who pulled down seven boards. Bassett followed with five rebounds while eight different players pulled down at least one rebound on the night. Bassett also added three assists and a pair of steals to her credit.
The Chargers will close out a two-game road trip on the weekend when they trek to the capital of the Empire State, Albany, New York to take on the Saint Rose Golden Knights. Opening tip in the weekend matinee is slated for 1:30 p.m. with all of the action available on NE10Now.tv.
