Firebirds Suffer Tough Loss Against the Chargers in Season Opener

Spark hill, N.Y.- The University of the District of Columbia's women's basketball team suffered a tough loss to the Dominican College Chargers, in what turned out to be a fight to the  finish in both team's season opener at the St Thomas Aquinas College Conference Challenge.

The Firebirds were led offensively by Freshman Halia Ellis and Junior transfer Alexus King who scored 15 points each. In her debut College career Ellis also led the Firebirds with five assists.

The Firebirds were on fire coming out of the first quarter with a total of 24 points and leading the Chargers by eight. The second quarter saw the Chargers closing that lead, but still trailing two points behind going into the half. Junior Danielle Harrington led the Firebirds and tied the field with seven points. Freshman Latavia Jackson came off the bench to contribute six points of her own.

The Third quarter started with the Chargers evening out the score 33-33 with a made layup by Khay'la Latimer a little less than 15 seconds into play. The rest of the quarter saw the Chargers outscoring the Firebirds 17-13.

The Chargers pulled away from UDC with an eight-point lead with less than five minutes to go in the game, but the Firebirds would respond after two free throws made by King and a jump shot made by Ellis helped close the gap and give the Firebirds some momentum. A lay-up made by Harrington made it a two-point game. The last 2:30 of the game however, saw the Chargers pulling away to beat the Firebirds 76-69.

While the Chargers bench ran deep, the Firebirds were scarce on reserves forcing three out of the five starters (Maya Thomas, Ellis and Harrington) to play 35 plus minutes of game time.

UDC (1-0) will face off against American International tomorrow afternoon to finish up the STAC Conference Challenge. The game is slated to begin at 3:00pm.