The University of Rhode Island women’s basketball team dropped two of its three games this week, with losses to the University at Albany and the University of Maine surrounding a win against Le Moyne College.

The Rams traveled to Albany, New York on Friday to take on the Great Danes, who roster the twin sister of URI fourth-year Sophie Phillips, Lilly Phillips. The game marked the first time the sisters took their sibling rivalry onto the court in their collegiate careers.

“It just meant a lot to me personally, to come back [and] basically get a home game which I haven’t got in my career yet,” Sophie said. “This is the closest game that I could have to home and to have it be against my sister is even more special.”

Lilly and the Great Danes spoiled Sophie’s return home, as UAlbany beat the Rams 67-57. Lilly finished as the team’s third-leading scorer with 10 points, shooting 3-6 from the field and sinking all four free throws. Fifth-year Kayla Cooper led the Great Danes with 17 points and 14 rebounds. Her double-double against the Rams earned her the seventh American East Player of the Week selection of her career.

As for Sophie and the Rams, they struggled with shots from behind the arc. Sophie scored three points, with her only scoring coming off of free throws. Sophie went 3-6 from the line and missed all seven of her shots from the field, including six three-point attempts. As a team, the Rams only made three out of 20 attempts from behind the arc, hitting their first three almost seven minutes into the third quarter.

“I wasn’t happy with our pace at all [on Friday],” URI Head Coach Tammi Reiss said. “We didn’t really start playing fast until the second half. I thought we looked slow, lethargic, and really [had] no pace to our sets whatsoever until the second half.”

The Rams quickly hopped back on the bus for a two-hour ride to face the Le Moyne Dolphins on Sunday for the final game of their road trip, beating the Dolphins 76-51 as five Rams finished with double-digit point totals.

“I think the bus trip was hard, and not having any prep time doing walkthroughs and things of that nature,” Reiss said. “It’s also good for them to bond and go through some adversity and go through some things early on in the season that gets us ready for [Atlantic 10] play.”

Third-year Cia Eklöf had the highest-scoring game of her career, as she shot 4-6 from three-point range, finishing with 12 points in just her third game as a Ram. Eklöf, after redshirting her first year at Washington State University, averaged only 1.6 points in seven games last year. Fellow third-year Anaelle Dutat was the leading scorer and rebounder for the Rams, matching her career-high with 13 points and eight rebounds.

“I was really happy today with getting everyone who was dressed today, playing time, and a little bit of experience, that was key for us today,” Reiss said. “Second thing I was really happy with was some of our bench players stepping in and really giving us really good minutes [with] one [player] being Cia [Eklöf]. We’re going to need some outside shooting in the future and I thought Cia did an excellent job off the bench for us.”

Despite the momentum, the Rams lost to the Black Bears on Wednesday, 57-53, in their return to the Thomas M. Ryan Center following their road trip in New York.

First-year Palmire Mbu logged 16 minutes in her collegiate debut after missing the first three games of the year due to NCAA eligibility restrictions. Mbu finished with nine points, three rebounds, two blocks and a steal.

The shooting issues continued for the Rams, as the team shot 29.4% from behind the arc and 55.6% from the free throw line. After starting the game making all five of their free throws, the Rams went 5-13 the rest of the game, including a 1-5 mark in the fourth quarter.

“Free throws become mental at some point, you gotta step to that line and go, ‘these two are going down,’” Reiss said. “It’s as much mental as physical and we practice both [pressured and unpressured] and tired, sealegs, we do all three things to try to get them, but right now our free throw shooting is abysmal.”

The Rams look to defend their home court against St. John’s University on Sunday at 2 p.m. The game will be broadcasted on ESPN+ with radio broadcasts available on the Varsity Network or RIU2.org.

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