NANTICOKE, Pa. - A poor shooting night at the charity stripe cost Northampton in their Region 19 opener, as the Spartans fell 62-54, against Luzerne County Community College on Thursday evening at the James T. Atherton Gymnasium. Northampton finished a paltry 8 of 23 from the foul line.
"Tough loss tonight," stated Spartans Head Coach
Carly Gallagher, "We didn't control the tempo tonight. We struggled at the foul line and we had way too many turnovers. We dug a hole for ourselves in the second quarter and just couldn't get back into rhythm and felt like we were in a constant uphill climb tonight. We put ourselves in a tough spot and we just need to be better. All things that we can control. We will get back to work and focus on being better across the board."
Northampton fell behind early, trailing 21-16 after the first quarter, and the Spartans were held to just 5 points in the second quarter, going into halftime trailing the Trailblazers, 34-20. The Spartans were unable to get anything going following the intermission and found themselves down 15 points heading into the fourth quarter, 50-35. Luzerne was able to put the game away in the fourth quarter for the upset win over the Spartans.
Freshman small forward
Emma Campusano (Tobyhana, PA/Pocono Mountain West) led the Spartans with 21 points, 6 steals and 9 rebounds and
Jordan Dickerson (Milford, PA/Delaware Valley) chipped in with 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Spartans.
Simone Smith (Philadelphia, PA/Lincoln) scored 7 points and had 4 steals.
Justyce McChristian (Whitehall, PA/Dieruff) pulled down 10 boards.
Northampton is now 1-2 overall, 0-1 in Region 19 and 0-1 in the EPAC following the loss.
Luzerne is now 1-0 overall, 1-0 in the Region and 1-0 in conference play.
The Spartans are back in action on Saturday, November 7th when they travel to Paterson, New Jersey to take on Passaic County Community College in a Region 19 match-up at 12pm at the Panther Gymnasium.
