Mayza was one of three freshman to start the Hawks season opener against UConn. Courtesy of HartfordHawks.com

This past Saturday the University of Hartford women’s basketball team lost their season opener to the defending National Champion UConn Huskies.

The Hawks lost 89-34 at the XL Center and were led by freshman point guard Deanna Mayza who racked up eight points with four rebounds.

Hartford began the game by making their first three baskets with Reaves making the first two layup opportunities.

Following a retaliation layup from UConn’s Stefanie Dolson, junior Amber Bepko made her first attempted three pointer of the game cutting the Huskies lead to 9-7.

UConn went on an 18-0 run until senior captain Alyssa Englert made a jump shot, which cut Uconn’s lead to 27-9. By halftime Hartford was down 55-17.

At the half freshman Alyssa Reaves finished the first 20 minutes with six points.

Following halftime the Huskies went on an 8-0 run until Reaves provided Hartford’s first points of the second half.

Harford pulled the deficit to 80-34 with 5:33 remaining in the game.

UConn finished the game by scoring the final seven points of the game.

Head coach Jennifer Rizzotti started off her 15 season at Hartford with starting three freshman.

She was quoted with saying,

“It came down to just making sure that we were doing what was right for this game and we decided at the end of the week that we needed to go with rebounding. Milana [Gilbert], Alyssa Reaves and La’Trice [Hall] have been our best rebounders in practice and in the preseason and I felt like Deanna [Mayza] has been our best point guard.”

Both Reaves and fellow freshman La’Trice Hall finished the game with six and four points.

Among the scoring leaders was sophomore Katelyn Skinner who came off the bench making two of her first three point shots finishing the game with six points.

The Hawks finished the game only shooting 27 percent over-all, only making 12 out of their 44 attempts.

Hartford also made only four out of their 21 three point attempts finishing with a 19 percent three-point percentage.

Although Hartford struggled with shooting, they finished six for eight on free throw attempts.

Hartford was dominated on rebounds by the Huskies with a 35-22 advantage.

Hall and Mayza led Hartford’s rebounding with five and four each.

Senior Milana Gilbert also finished the game with three rebounds.

UConn was led by Moriah Jefferson who tallied up 17 points and five assists.

Right behind her was Stefanie Dolson and Breanna Stewart who finished with 16 and 14 points, respectively.

Stewart also was six for eight from the line and Dolson was perfect from behind the arc.

Hartford’s next game is scheduled for 7 p.m. against the Loyola Greyhounds today at Reitz Arena.