Cold Shooting, Turnovers Plague Firebirds in Loss to Bloomfield

WASHINGTON, DC – The University of the District of Columbia women's basketball team suffered its first loss of the season Saturday afternoon, 72-57 to regional foe Bloomfield College.

The Firebirds (3-1) had recently earned a No. 4 East Region ranking in the D2SIDA weekly poll and had won their first three games by an average of over 20 points per contest coming into Saturday's game, but struggled offensively with season-low 30-percent field goal shooting and a season-high 24 turnovers.

Senior guard Telisha Turner (Criminal Justice – Wilmington, DE/Harcum) led the UDC offensive charge with 15 points while also pitching in five rebounds and three assists. Senior forward Denikka Brent (Mechanical Engineering – Chesapeake, VA/Booker T. Washington HS) and junior guard Tajruba Baldwin-Kollore (Criminal Justice – Newport News, VA/Denbigh HS) added 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, freshman guard De'Andra Humphries came in off the bench to score a game-high 19 points to help the Bears improve to 2-1 on the season. She shot 8-of-11 from the field and added six rebounds. Three of Bloomfield's five starters reached double-figure scoring as well, including guard Ariel Wilson (13 points), guard Tianna Smith (12 points) and center Tierra Scott (10 points, nine rebounds).

Baldwin-Kollored scored the game's first points on a pair of made free-throws 15 seconds into the game, but the Bears would never trail again after a 14-2 burst over the next four minutes. Trailing 23-14 at the 9:32 mark, the Firebirds went on a 6-0 mini-run aided by four consecutive points by Brent, and closed the gap to, 23-20; however, Bloomfield answered with three consecutive layups (two by Gabriella Bennett) and extended its lead back to nine (29-20) with six minutes to play in the first half. The Bears took a 36-26 advantage into intermission.

Bloomfield quickly extended its lead to 15 with a 5-0 run to open the second half, and the Bears never looked back. They led by as many as 23 points late in the second half before settling for a 15-point margin of victory.

The Firebirds will look to bounce back as they visit non-regional foe Shaw on Tuesday, November 25^th at 6 p.m. Shaw, like UDC, was receiving votes for the WBCA preseason top-25 national poll.