Histed leads Panthers past Seton Hall

Pirates usually steal, but not this time. The Panthers’ women’s basketball team was more than… Pirates usually steal, but not this time. The Panthers’ women’s basketball team was more than happy to give away their losing streak.

By beating Seton Hall, 62-59, Wednesday night in South Orange, N.J., Pitt ended its three-game skid; now the Pirates have lost three in a row.

“(Wins) are hard to get in the Big East,” head coach Agnus Berenato said. “When you lose three in a row, it’s hard. I think there’s winning and misery, and we were miserable.”

The Panthers (10-6 overall, 2-3 Big East) trailed by two at halftime, 23-21, but quickly tied the score at 23 on two Marcedes Walker free throws. The Pirates (10-7, 2-4) held a 32-29 lead with 14:55 remaining, but that lead would be their last of the game.

With 14:34 left to play, Panther guard Katie Histed knocked down a 3-pointer to tie the game. Cheron Taylor’s layup then gave the Panthers the lead, 33-31. Following three points from Jennifer Brown, Seton Hall finally got two of its own on a layup by forward Monique Blake.

Histed then took over for the Panthers, stealing the ball from Pirate guard Asia Carroll and scoring on a layup. Seton Hall countered with two points on a jump shot by Ashley Bush, but Histed hit a pair of 3-pointers 42 seconds apart to add to the Panthers’ momentum.

In just under four minutes, the Panthers had turned a three-point deficit into a nine-point lead. Histed scored 11 of her 15 points during the span. The Pirates rallied back in the final minutes, but tight defense and clutch free throws enabled the Panthers to hang on for the win.

Histed finished the game tied with Brown for the team high in points at 15. Brown also pulled down nine rebounds.

“She came up big for us,” Berenato said of Histed. “She was 6-of-10 (from the field) and 3-of-5 from 3-point range, and that was really important for us.”

Shooting had become the Panthers’ Achilles’ heel over the past three games, shooting a dismal 33 percent from the floor and 22 percent from beyond the 3-point line. Against Seton Hall, however, the Panthers knocked down 43 percent of their shots; 50 percent from downtown.

Berenato attributed the difference in the shooting to shot selection.

“What we spent the last couple days doing was trying to emphasize to the team that open shots aren’t necessarily good shots,” she said. “I felt like, in the Syracuse game, we had open shots, but they weren’t good shots.”

She added that the team had watched film over the past few days to show players not only the shots they were taking, but also the shots they could have been taking.

The Panthers held Seton Hall to only 34 percent shooting from the field, including 27 percent 3-point shooting. Bush led the Pirates in scoring with 19 points.

Pitt is back in action on the road tomorrow in Washington, D.C., for a 2 p.m. contest with Georgetown.