Box Score WATERVILLE, Maine—After trailing by as many as 16, UMass Boston women's basketball (0-1) came all the way back to take a one-point lead with 2:26 to play, only to have host Colby College (1-0) finish the game on a 8-2 run in a 79-74 Mules victory.
Junior forward Olivia Murphy (Canton, Mass.) and Maine native Mallory Nelson (Topsham, Maine) each finished with double-doubles in the 2014-15 opener for the Beacons. Murphy finished with a team-high 18 points to go along with her game-high 13 rebounds, while Nelson added 13 points and 10 rebounds for her first-career double-double. The double-double marked the 23rd of Murphy's career in just 49 career contests.
Sophomore Katrina Edwards (Springfield, Mass.) chipped in with 12 points and nine rebounds, while freshman Katie Mathieu (Coventry, Conn.) and Grace Geary (Falmouth, Mass.) were the fourth and fifth Beacons in double-digits with 14 and 12 points respectively. Geary led the Beacons with six of the team's 18 assists, while Mathieu and Geary combined for four of UMass Boston's five made three-pointers.
Sophomore transfer Taje Burston (Springfield, Mass.) and freshman Raven Kelsey (Boston, Mass.) also made their Beacon debuts, with the pair combing for five points.
The host Mules also had five players in double-digits, led by Mia Diplock's 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Starters Caitlyn Nolan (16 points), Carylanne Wolfington (13 points) and Haley Driscoll (11 points) all reached double-figures as well, while Brooke Chandor came off the bench to hit three three-pointers and finished with 16 points for Colby.
Colby got off to a 6-0 start and never looked back in the first half of both team's 2014-15 season opener, with the Mules opening up a 16-point advantage (40-24) just before the break.
After a back-and-forth start to the second stanza, the Beacons used an 11-2 run to get back into the game. Murphy knocked down a pair of free throws and a layup to cut the deficit to 10, before Driscoll answered back with a layup of her own. From there, Murphy hit another layup, Edwards drained two free throws and Mathieu knocked down a pair of layups to cut the deficit to 50-46 with 11:54 to play.
The Mules pushed the lead back out to five with 5:40 to play, but Nelson hit a jump shot and Geary drained a three at 4:37 to tie the game for the first time all day at 66-66.
Geary gave the Beacons' their only lead of the day minutes later, when the point guard hit a layup to give UMass Boston a 72-71 advantage with 2:26 to play.
It would be all Mules from there though, as Wolfington went on a personal 6-0 run. She made a free throw to tie the game, and added a layup and a three-pointer in a 1:06 span to make it 77-72 Mules.
After a Nolan free throw pushed the advantage to six, Murphy made a layup for the Beacons' final points of the day in a 79-74 loss.
While the Beacons struggled shooting the ball from distance 5-21 (23.8 percent), UMass Boston did hold an advantage over their hosts in rebounds (42-33) and second-chance points (19-12). The two teams combined for just 17 turnovers, with Colby scoring 11 points off 10 UMass Boston turnovers, compared to three Beacons' points off of seven Colby turnovers.
UMass Boston will continue their season-opening, six-game road-trip, when the Beacons take on Lasell College on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. on Day One of the Salem State University Tournament.
