GREENVILLE, North Carolina — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore women's basketball team hung right with East Carolina (1-0) throughout the first half on Tuesday (Nov. 7) particularly in a second quarter that saw the Hawks (0-1) take the lead twice and go into the break down 35-34.

But a second-half surge, where the Pirates outscored The Shore 25-16 in the third quarter with the help of a defensive change was the key to an eventual 84-69 Hawks loss.

"I thought we did some good things," head coach Fred Batchelor said. "But I think we learned that we have to practice harder to play consistently to beat teams like this."

Early in the game it was Ciani Byrom (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) who imposed her will on the game with nine first-quarter points. In the second period, it was Keyera Eaton (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) who did the damage with 11 points including a trio of 3-pointers.

After the break, East Carolina went to a 2-3 zone look that took away the drive for Byrom and made her give up the ball on the perimeter.

"I thought we had a lull particularly in the third quarter," Batchelor said. "I thought their 2-3 zone kind of took CiCi out of the game and forced others to make plays. That goes to what we talked about with concentrating and focusing in practice where it has to be tougher than the game."

Fatigue was a factor, with some of the 12 second-half turnovers attributable to fatigue. As the season moves forward he said the team will have to be better prepared to fight through the fatigue, but he knows he'll need to find more from his bench because the Hawks can't ride anyone in their rotation for 35+ minutes a game for four months.

"We had kids who played a lot of minutes," Batchelor said. "CiCi played 37 minutes, Keyera played 36 minutes, there was a fatigue factor. That is something that we have to prepare them to do because I like what we got from them together on the floor. I think the season looks really bright for us."

Another bright spot Batchelor said was the play of junior Ksenia Popovich (Moscow, Russia), who made the first start of her career and put in 35 minutes against a much larger front line for the Pirates. Popovich finished with eight rebounds and five points. It was more minutes that she had played in any game for the Hawks.

The last time she played 35 minutes?

"Back in Russia," Popovich said.

Popovich's effort inside was part of a team game that saw the Hawks outrebound the much larger Pirates 44-39 in the contest.

"I told them how proud I was of them that we outrebounded them," Batchelor said. "We also had six more offensive rebounds than them and held them to 11 offensive rebounds. Last year they had 23 offensive rebounds. I thought we made a great effort being disciplined with our block out.

"That's something we learned from the Salisbury game because I consistently pointed out to them how disciplined Salisbury was in blocking us out. That was the way they were able to stay with us."

Senior Ra'Jean Martin (Jacksonville, Florida) scored eight points, grabbed six rebounds and picked up a pair of steals. Sophomore Bairesha Gill-Miles finished with seven rebounds and six points in 23 minutes as she battled foul trouble in the first half.

Eaton led all scorers with 20 points, grabbed seven rebounds and added a pair of assists and a pair of steals. Byrom finished with 19 points, five rebounds, six assists and a steal.

ECU played nine different players for at least 18 minutes in the contest putting constantly fresh players on the Hawks. The constant turnaround forced Batchelor at one point to use a precious timeout just to get his players on the floor a break.

Fouls were a problem for the Hawks against the bigger Pirates with the team finishing with three players with four fouls (Byrom, Gill-Miles, Martin) and junior Chioma Nkpuechina (Ananbra, Nigeria) fouled out.

Eastern Shore struggled from the free throw line in the first half going 6-of-15, but recovered to make 10-of-11 in the second half.

Batchelor was unhappy with a few mental breakdowns in the game including a fourth quarter technical foul by Gill-Miles that he said he will be addressing in practice this week.

"We have some work to do to get better," Batchelor said. "I thought we took a step in the right direction tonight on the road against a very talented team. I thought when we didn't play well, they played very well. You have got to respect players in this game because everybody wants to win. I thought they turned it on at the right time and we got open looks and didn't make them pay."

The Hawks planned to take Wednesday off and then return to practice on Thursday to prepare for the Nov. 9 matchup at Georgetown.