Facing the last-place team in the conference to start their postseason campaign, Northeastern put up one of its worst offensive efforts of the season at the worst possible time, suffering a 51-50 loss to UNCW that knocked the Huskies out of the CAA Tournament just as it was getting started.
Northeastern shot just 21-for-66 (32%) from the floor Wednesday afternoon, their second-worst performance of the season behind a more understandable 18-for-60 (30%) showing against regular-season champions Charleston last month. The Huskies’ top three scorers on the season (sophomore guard Camryn Collins, junior guard Yirsy Quéliz, and sophomore forward Justice Tramble) combined to go just 5-for-34 (15%) from the field in Wednesday’s matchup. Those three, who combined to average 32.5 points per game during conference play, could together only muster a total of 10 points on the afternoon.
One of the Northeastern players who did show up at CareFirst Arena was sophomore guard Morgan Matthews, who had her best game of the year, tying a career high with 15 points and setting a new one with 8 rebounds. The George Washington University transfer’s defensive effort was just as impressive, and her play was really the only reason the Huskies were almost able to pull this one out.
“Morgan has really been coming into her own in the second half of the season, finding her offensive game,” said Northeastern head coach Priscilla Edwards-Lloyd. “She’s had to guard teams’ best defenders, which requires a different level of focus from her, which I think has really helped her to be more aggressive offensively.”
Northeastern was cold from the beginning in this game, missing seven of their first nine shots. The Seahawks weren’t exactly lighting it up from the floor either (in fact, they actually shot 30% on the game, a worse mark than the Huskies), but they held an early lead after a layup from redshirt sophomore guard Kylah Silver put them ahead 10-7. Silver, who is UNCW’s top scorer remaining after graduate student guard Rori Cox suffered a season-ending injury last month, would finish the day with a team-high 14 points.
Despite UNCW’s early lead, Northeastern outscored the Seahawks 12-3 in the rest of the quarter, the only made bucket for UNCW during that span being a three-pointer that was immediately answered from deep by Huskies graduate student guard Nariyah Simmons.
Simmons went on to score six of Northeastern’s 10 points in the second quarter, including another three as well as a layup off a steal in the backcourt. Outside of her, though, the Huskies struggled in the frame, going just 4-for-16 (25%) as a team from the field… which was the exact same mark the Seahawks shot at during that quarter.
Northeastern took a five-point lead into the halftime break, an advantage that could have been much larger had the Huskies been able to capitalize on all of the opportunities UNCW was handing them. Unfortunately, that trend would continue to start the second half.
After a Matthews jumper 45 seconds in put Northeastern up seven, the Huskies missed their next eight shots from the floor, including four missed layups from Tramble in the span of 30 seconds, none of which were all that close. That allowed the Seahawks to take their first lead since the first quarter, but it was Matthews, fittingly, who ended the four-minute scoring drought with a runner in the paint on the next possession.
With two minutes to go in the quarter and the game tied at 37, sophomore guard María Sánchez Pitarch grabbed a rebound and found Quéliz open on an outlet pass for a fast-break opportunity. The junior took it coast to coast for an uncontested layup attempt, but her shot went off the underside of the backboard as she stumbled over the baseline.
It was unfortunately just the kind of day Quéliz was having, the miss being her eighth in nine attempts on the game. It bore similarities to Northeastern’s lone CAA Tournament game last season, when regular-season leading scorer Abby Jegede went 0-for-14 from the field for the Huskies in a first round loss to Towson. Quéliz finished Wednesday’s game 1-for-14.
Yet despite all of the shooting struggles for Northeastern, UNCW’s equally bad performance on the other side of the floor kept this game even, and if the Huskies could win the fourth quarter, they would be able to put all of the lowlights behind them and move on to the second round.
Less than a minute into the fourth, there was a scary scene when freshman guard Kailee Beaudion-Foliaki appeared to suffer a non-contact injury to her right ankle. She was able to stay by the bench and use the exercise bike for the rest of regulation, but did not return to the floor.
On that possession, UNCW redshirt junior forward Torin Rogers sank a corner three, the start of an 8-2 run buoyed more by Northeastern going 0-for-5 from the floor in the first five minutes of the quarter than anything else. That run was ended by Matthews (who else?), who got a few friendly bounces on a three-pointer attempt to make it a one-possession game. The Huskies then rattled off layups from Matthews, Simmons, and Tramble (her only points of the day) to take a 50-47 lead with under two minutes remaining.
“We got a group of fighters,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “They bounce back. They find a way to dig deep and get stops, and I thought we started defending, which led to better offense.”
A pair of free throws trimmed the Huskies’ lead to one, and Northeastern controlled the ball with 41 seconds to go in regulation. Quéliz dribbled out some clock, but she may have wound it down too much, as the Huskies didn’t seem to know what they were trying to run as the shot clock ticked. With the buzzer about to sound, Quéliz was forced to jack up a three-pointer from way deep, and it missed the rim, giving the ball back to the Seahawks with 10.4 to go.
On the ensuing possession, with the ball in the paint, Silver dished it to redshirt freshman center Angelina Pelayo. Simmons shifted into the paint to defend her, and went down to the floor as Pelayo went up with it, but got called for the blocking foul. It was a tough call, but Simmons was late by the slimmest of margins.
Pelayo, a 67% free-throw shooter who had just sunk the pair from the line on the prior possession, made both shots again to give UNCW a one-point lead.
There were still 2.7 seconds left on the clock, and Northeastern advanced the ball with an opportunity to win the game off a frontcourt inbounds play. Simmons found Quéliz in the corner, who was able to drive into the paint and put up a layup attempt high off the glass. Like many of her other shots on the afternoon, it was too strong.
Quéliz, the longest-tenured player on Northeastern’s roster, let out a scream of anger as she watched the shot bounce off the front rim. Beaudion-Foliaki, the freshman, was the first to console her.
“Hats off to Northeastern … they took it to us in the first quarter,” said Seahawks head coach Nicole Woods. “I thought they were prepared. They clearly knew the gameplan against us.”
The win is UNCW’s first victory in the CAA Tournament since 2021, and their first win away from Trask Coliseum since November 7.
For Northeastern, the game concludes a season that was Edwards-Lloyd’s third year at the helm, but the first time she had any semblance of a healthy roster at her disposal. While the Huskies (7-22, 3-15) only improved on last year’s conference record by one game, the three wins included victories over Monmouth and Stony Brook, two top-five teams in the CAA standings… and the teams they would have faced in the second round and quarterfinals of the tournament, respectively, had Northeastern been able to advance that far.
While Wednesday’s game was the last of Simmons’ collegiate career, and redshirt senior guard Natalie Larrañaga will be moving on after missing the entire season with an injury, almost all of the Huskies’ roster is eligible to return next year. With Quéliz and Simmons the only upperclassmen who saw regular playing time, this year’s squad was young and developed over the course of the season, and it would be exciting to see how they can further grow with another year on Huntington Avenue. This was very much a “rebuilding” season after the injury-wracked campaigns of the past two years, and while the results didn’t always show in the win column, a significant foundation has been laid that can be used to build towards the future.
Thank you for following WRBB’s women’s basketball coverage all season long. We will be back in the fall to bring you full coverage of the Huskies’ 2026-27 campaign.
Jordan Walsh is a fifth-year student at Northeastern who has been with WRBB Sports since 2021, primarily covering men’s and women’s basketball. You can read all of his articles for WRBB here and find him on Twitter/X here.