FARMVILLE, Virginia — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore women's basketball team hung close on the road at Longwood Tuesday (Nov. 27) holding a lead as late as with just over a minute left in the third quarter. But The Hawks (2-5) faltered late as the Lancers (1-2) made the necessary played down the stretch to pull away for a 83-71 win.

"I didn't think we played well for the most part the whole night," head coach Fred Batchelor said. "I thought there were spurts we played well, but we weren't able to sustain it for any period of time. You go down big in the first half and you come back and you fight to get yourself in position at halftime down four after they shot 60 percent from the field and more than 50 from three — which was uncharacteristic of what they did in their first two games. We just couldn't put together a long enough time period of playing really solid basketball and that is what hurt us on the road."

The Shore won the opening tip and took a 3-0 lead on a 3-pointer by senior Keyera Eaton (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), but the Lancers answered quickly with a 12-0 run over the next four minutes putting the Hawks in a hole they had no choice but to fight their way out of.

Longwood led 23-16 at the end of the first quarter. A strong second quarter saw the Hawks outscore the Lancers 27-24 to cut the advantage to 47-43.

With just over six minutes to go in the third quarter, the Hawks took their first lead since the opening second 49-48, when Ciani Byrom (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) found Bairesha Gill-Miles (Lexington, Kentucky) for a layup.

But that was short lived as Longwood quickly took the lead back and the lead seesawed through the end of the quarter. Byrom found Eaton to tie the game at 52-52, then a three-point play by Dominique Walker (Bel Air, Maryland) and another put back on the offensive end gave the Hawks their biggest lead 56-52.

When the dust settled at the end of three, the Lancers held a 61-58 lead. Four minutes into the fourth, they had pushed the 68-59. Eastern Shore never made up the deficit again.

"They went on more runs," Batchelor said. "They sustained it and I thought they were the aggressor and they always had us off balance the whole night. Even when we started playing well, they didn't falter. They didn't break down when we came back and took the lead. A lot of times that takes a lot out of teams and they responded with a 6-0 run right off of that. I thought they played well enough to win the game on their home floor and we didn't take advantage  of the opportunities that we had."

Sophomore Bairesha Gill-Miles (Lexington, Kentucky) finished the game with a team-high 18 points to go with 10 rebounds two steals and a block. She did turn the ball over seven times, but eight of her points came on 8-of-12 shooting from the line 66 percent where she has improved considerably this season after shooting 41 percent as a freshman.

"She is growing," Batchelor said. "She is becoming a little bit more mentally tougher. That is something that we talked about. I think she does put in the extra work. She has really been concentrating and focused when we do have the opportunity to work on it and it is showing to be a benefit to her."

Gill-Miles was held in check late scoring just one of her 18 in the fourth quarter. The Hawks were held to 25 percent shooting in the final period.

Sophomore Amanda Carney (Parlin, New Jersey) and freshman Brooklyn Bailey (Rock Hill, South Carolina) made big contributions off the bench — each scoring a career high. Bailey scored eight points and had two rebounds five assists and a steal. Carney was 4-of-6 from behind the arc for 12 points and added five rebounds and assist, a steal and a block.

"I thought we got what we needed to get from our bench in regard to some scoring, from Brooklyn in the first half and from Amanda in the second half," Batchelor said. "I thought Dom gave us a couple good buckets. We had a couple breakdowns defensively from the bench, but I thought we could have gotten a little more solid play out of our starters — we had three starters that had seven points combined on probably 18 shots.

"KeKe (Eaton) has seven points in 26 minutes (on 3-of-15 shooting). Ra'Jean Martin (Jacksonville, Florida) played 14 minutes and didn't score and Ksenia Popovich (Moscow, Russia) plays 26 minutes and doesn't score. You have seven points from three starters and 31 off the bench doesn't make up for that because we still needed 30 off the bench and them to give us what they are capable of giving us."

Byrom finished with 15 points, two rebounds and six assists in 37 minutes. The Hawks shot 33 percent from the field in the game despite shooting 50 percent in the second quarter.

"I don't know if being off for Thanksgiving was part of that or not," Batchelor said. "I thought they seemed to not have a rhythm the whole game. I thought CeCe (BYrom) probably didn't play as well as she is capable of playing especially at certain points, but I think there is lot on her when three of her other starters are not producing. So, you have to be thankful for what she does give you as opposed to keep asking her to not just be the best player on the team but to carry the whole starting five other than Bunz (Gill-Miles) is a lot. I thought Bunz gave us some big number tonight with a double-double but outside of that we didn't get much from the other starters."

Following the game at Longwood, the Hawks will travel to Syracuse (Dec. 5), Wake Forest (Dec. 8) and Miami (Dec. 16).

"We are home and we get a chance to focus on school, which is good during this time of the year," Batchelor said. "This is a tough time for kids during this time. I can see it on them, see the stress. We'll be able to capitalize on the opportunity of being home and then this was the first of eight games on the road with three ACC opponents. This is one we thought we should have gotten.

"It doesn't get any easier form here and we just have to make the best of it."