By: Matt Sugam
NEW YORK – Columbia showed its ability to fight back while giving a glimpse of it's one-two punch for years to come in backcourt mates Abbey Hsu and Kitty Henderson.
Hsu had a season-high 27 points as the Columbia women's basketball team (7-2) used a 14-0 fourth-quarter run to overcame a eight-point deficit and defeat Delaware, 73-67, Thursday night on Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium.
"It says a lot about our character," Hsu said. "We didn't back down. We just came back if we went down, we came back punching. And like I said with the crowd – they gave us so much energy."
Henderson, a first-year from Australia, hit a 3-pointer from the left wing with 8:04 left to cut the Delaware (6-2) lead to 58-56 before the Lions tied the score on a floater from Kaitlyn Davis. Henderson had 11 points while Davis had nine points, 10 rebounds, four assists and two blocks.
Hsu gave Columbia the 60-58 lead after Davis found her on the backdoor cut under the basket midway through the fourth quarter. The teams would trade leads in the final minute, as Hsu had a nice crossover to give the lions the lead at 66-65, before giving Columbia the lead at 69-67 after driving to the basket for the old-fashioned 3-point play.
Henderson sealed the win with a steal and layup in the waning moments.
"Kitty Henderson is just as tough as they come," head coach Meghan Griffith said. "I've known her since she was probably a freshman or sophomore in high school. I've been recruiting her for a while and she's exactly the player that I knew would help take us to a different level. It's really neat though to see it manifest itself now that she's actually here. She's just going to keep getting better and better. And she can literally defend anybody on the court, which is a really nice luxury to have."
After trading a couple leads in the first few minutes, Columbia was up 19-14 at the end of the first quarter. The Lions led by as many as 11 in the first half before the Blue Hens chipped away to make it 35-31 at halftime.
Delaware would retake the lead at 48-47, and Columbia trailed 56-50 after Henderson had a layup to end the third quarter.
Carly Rivera dished out seven assists for Columbia to go with seven rebounds.
Delaware came into the game on a five-game winning streak. Both teams were ranked in this week's Mid-Major Top 25 by CollegeInsider.com, with Columbia checking in at No. 11 and Delaware is at No. 16.
Columbia will be on the road at Marist on Saturday, before a six-game homestand, which includes the start of Ivy League play.
"This is a very different program right now [from a few years ago]," Griffith said. "Culturally, the pieces, people – it's taken a while to build it, but I'm really proud of our staff and the players for believing in what we're doing and not just buying in. I think we surpassed the buy-in stage. When you believe in what you're doing, you can accomplish great things together. I think our ceiling is very high. We have a lot of things we need to figure out – our chemistry is still forming and molding and we've got a lot of new pieces – but I was happy with our fight today."
For the latest on the Columbia women's basketball, follow @CULionsWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.
Matt Sugam has been covering sports in the NYC Metropolitan area for over a decade. He has spent the last eight years covering college and professional sports as a stringer for the Associated Press, while also contributing to The New York Times, USA Today Network, NJ.com, and SNY.tv. He will be covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia's School of Professional Studies. Follow him on Twitter @MattSugam
