STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Caroline McCombs earned career win No. 100 and the Stony Brook women's basketball team opened America East play with a come-from-behind victory.
The Seawolves rallied to defeat UMBC, 57-45, at Island Federal Arena on Thursday to extend their winning streak to 10 games.
Stony Brook went scoreless over the final 6 minutes, 58 seconds of the second quarter and trailed 30-19 at halftime. The Seawolves then came out flying in the third quarter.
They evened the score at 32 on
Cheyenne Clark's offensive rebound and putback.
Gigi Gonzalez then delivered a tiebreaking three-pointer with 4:03 left in the period in what ultimately became a 19-2 run.
Stony Brook led the rest of the way.
It marked the largest deficit overcome in a win since Feb. 27 of last season, which happened to be the last meeting against UMBC — when a 13-point deficit turned into a 70-59 victory in Baltimore.
"It was our defense," McCombs said about what turned the tide in Thursday's meeting. "We tried to make some adjustments at halftime. We talked about our toughness — that we needed to be the tougher team. We thought that they they were playing tougher in that second quarter and we really needed to make that adjustment as a team."
In this meeting, Gonzalez made her second straight start at point guard as
Kaela Hilaire continued to mend from an injury suffered in Puerto Rico on Dec. 22.
India Pagan led the Seawolves with 16 points. Clark followed with 15 points and 15 rebounds for her second double-double of the season.
"We've talked a lot about different people being able to step up at different times," said McCombs, who owns a career .599 winning percentage in six seasons with the Seawolves. "As KK [Hilaire] has been out for the last couple of games, it's given different people an opportunity to run our team. It's just so important that whoever may be out for a particular game, we have other players who are able to fill those roles."
The Seawolves improved to 13-1 overall — extending the program's best start in the Division I era.
Stony Brook returns to action on Sunday when it hosts Maine at 2 p.m.
As for earning her 100th career win, McCombs added: "You can start counting wins, but I think we became a better program when we stopped focusing on the outcome and really committed to the process."
