Feb. 11, 2006

Box Score

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Kate Hobbs (Jr., Wexford, Pa.) and Carly Meyer (Jr., Orlando, Fla.) each scored 21 points and recorded a double-double to help lead the Navy women's basketball team to a 73-63 victory over Lafayette, Saturday afternoon in Alumni Hall. The victory improves Navy's record on the season to 12-11 and returns the Mids to the .500 level in Patriot League games at 5-5. The Leopards fell to 7-16 on the year and 2-8 in league play with the loss.

"I thought we had a pretty good game, both as individuals and as a team," said Navy head coach Tom Marryott. "I think our defense got Lafayette out of rhythm a bit as the game went on. We played very smart on that end of the floor, both containing and contesting on every possession.

"As the game went on our offense was playing better. Our perimeter players were patient and did a nice job of waiting for our post players to be ready to receive the ball."

Lafayette's offense started the game on fire, quickly jumping out to 14-point leads at 27-13 and 29-15. Navy started to slowly whittle away at the lead, however, and went into halftime trailing by just three points at 38-35.

Navy was its own enemy at the start of the game, turning the ball over 10 times in the half to limit its possessions. When Navy did take care of the ball the Mids had a high rate of success, connecting on 56.5 percent of their shots from the field during the opening 20 minutes.

As the second half began, a Meyer three-pointer tied the game at 44-44 with 15:28 to play, then Navy took its first lead of the second half three minutes later when Meyer found Betsy Burnett (Jr., New Holstein, Wis.) open in the lane to make the score 46-45. Ensuing baskets by Meyer and Margaret Knap (Jr., Chicago, Ill.) over the next 75 seconds capped a 12-3 Navy run and gave the Mids a 50-45 lead with just over 11 minutes remaining in the game.

A basket by Lafayette's Lindsay Myers would narrow the margin to three points at 50-47, but an immediate 5-0 Navy run gave the Mids an eight-point lead with eight minutes remaining. The Leopards would slice the deficit down to four points on two occasions over the next five minutes, but Navy scored on each of its ensuing possessions to maintain control of the contest.

Navy connected on 8-of-9 free throws over the final five minutes to secure the victory.

Navy enjoyed a big advantage on the glass in the game, hauling in 40 caroms to 27 for the Leopards in the contest and totaling 26 rebounds to 14 for Lafayette during the second half.

After starting the game shooting 10-of-16 from the field (62.5%) and 4-of-5 from behind the three-point line (80.0%) in taking their 29-15 lead, the Leopards converted only 11-of-41 of their shots from the field (26.8%) and 2-of-13 three-point attempts (15.3%) over the remainder of the contest as Navy outscored Lafayette 58-34.

Navy shot 50 percent from the field in the game and, after making just 2-of-11 three-point field goal attempts Tuesday against Lehigh, the Mids sank 7-of-11 three-point attempts against the Leopards. The Navy defense held Lafayette to 26.7-percent shooting from the field in the second half as the Leopards missed all of their nine three-point attempts after intermission.

In addition to their 21 points, Hobbs hauled in a career-high 12 caroms for her first double-double of the season and the second of her career, while Meyer posted 10 rebounds to record her third double-double of the season.

"Carly has worked so hard over the last few weeks," said Marryott. "She has put in a lot of extra work and it was nice to see the fruits of her labor today."

The last time two Mids recorded a double-double in a game was December 22, 2004, against Morehead State (Meyer and Ashley Pelzek), while the last time Navy had two players score over 20 points in a game was March 5, 2004 vs. American (Courtney Davidson and Maile Shimoda). The last time two Mids both scored over 20 points and hauled in double-digit rebounds was Dec. 21, 1995 vs. Charleston Southern (Joanna Groth, Adria Schneck).

Also playing well for the Mids was Knap, who scored six of her eight points and grabbed half of her six rebounds in the first half.

Navy's four-member junior class of Burnett, Hobbs, Knap and Meyer totaled 56 points and 32 rebounds in today's game.

Myers led Lafayette with 18 points.

Navy will take to the road for its next three games, with the final road swing of the season starting Tuesday at Holy Cross. The game can be live on WNAV-AM 1430 and www.wnav.com starting at 6:45 p.m., with tipoff slated for 7 p.m.