BOSTON — The CAA-leading scoring defense of Campbell came into Friday night holding conference opponents to 51 points per game, and that was exactly how many Northeastern would score in a 61-51 loss at the Cabot Center.
After shooting 50% from the field in their previous game — a win over Monmouth last weekend to notch their first CAA victory of the season — the Huskies went 18-for-48 (38%) from the floor on Friday. Junior guard Yirsy Quéliz finished with 13 points, but was the only player to break double digits for Northeastern, while four Camels finished the game in double figures.
A slow start to the game saw the visitors get out to a 9-2 lead midway through the first quarter, with the Huskies missing four of their first five shots and committing three turnovers in that timeframe. Following the media timeout, Northeastern scored ten unanswered points, including a pair of threes from graduate student guard Nariyah Simmons.
Campbell would respond, knocking down a couple three-pointers of their own to hold a one-possession lead for most of the second quarter and head into the halftime break up 27-23.
The first five minutes of the second half looked like the first five minutes of the first half, as the Camels outscored the Huskies 12-4 to take a 12-point lead at the halfway mark of the third quarter. Northeastern tried slowly chipping away at the deficit, cutting the margin to as little as five points a couple of minutes into the fourth quarter. A three-pointer from Quéliz made it 54-49 with three minutes left in regulation, but Camels sophomore guard Olivia Tucker would respond a couple of possessions later with a three of her own, providing the dagger to any chances of a Northeastern comeback.
Northeastern head coach Priscilla Edwards-Lloyd said it was ultimately the starts to both halves that doomed the Huskies.
“We played hard, but I feel like we came out flat to start, and flat at the start of the third quarter, and against a really good team like Campbell, you can’t really have those lapses,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “I thought we fought, and did enough to kind of hang around, but ultimately, we have to execute better and start better.”
The 51 points scored by the Huskies on Friday night is tied for their second-lowest offensive output of the season, and 12 points lower than the average of 63 points per game they’d produced coming into this one.
“The focus was to be able to handle the waves of pressure that [Campbell was] going to bring,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “They’re well-scouted, they’re very locked into what teams do well and they hang their hat on taking that away … So we tried to talk about being patient, moving the ball, and getting to our spots.”
Quéliz made her first start in six games, replacing Simmons in that spot, and had somewhat of a bounceback after scoring just one point in 25 minutes last Sunday.
“She got the pace for us at times, which was really good,” Edwards-Lloyd said of Quéliz. “She pushed the ball. She’s able to be aggressive in pockets. And so I thought she brought some good pace for us.”
Northeastern heads on the road for the back half of the weekend, as they travel to face a Hofstra team that also sits at 1-4 in conference play.
“The message was, we played a really good team today, but we have to come in tomorrow,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “We have to watch the film, we have to learn from our mistakes, and we have to be able to regroup to go play a really defensive-minded Hofstra team on the road, to bounce back.”
The Huskies travel to Long Island to take on Hofstra at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Stay tuned to WRBB for continued coverage of the 2025-26 women’s basketball season.
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.