Dec. 29, 2007

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- After scoring on five of its final six possessions of overtime, one last defensive stand over the final seconds gave the Navy women's basketball team a dramatic 72-69 victory over Air Force, Saturday afternoon at Alumni Hall.

"I am proud of how we hung in there and kept battling back," said Navy head coach Tom Marryott. "There were a number of opportunities in which we could have hung our heads, but to their credit the girls didn't and always believed they could come back. We trailed by double digits in the second half, took the lead, then had to go into overtime. We were down early in the overtime period, but came back strong. We were very resilient."

The afternoon began with Air Force taking a five-point lead on three occasions early in the game, with Navy answering by scoring nine-straight points and taking a 21-17 lead with six minutes left to play in the half. From there, however, Air Force closed the half on a 15-2 run to take a 32-23 lead at intermission.

The Falcons would extended their lead to as many as 11 points at 38-27, 41-30 and 43-32, with the latter occasion coming with 15:38 remaining in the game. Air Force would still hold a nine-point advantage at 48-39 with just over 10 minutes left to play when the Mids started to chip away at the margin. Navy would tie the game at 48-48 on a three-pointer by Whitney Davidson (Jr., New Oxford, Pa.) with 6:35 left to play, then took its first lead of the second half following a jumper from Kelly Altschul (So., Highland Village, Texas) on its next trip down the floor. Navy would slowly build a five-point advantage at 59-54 when K.C. Gordon (So., Vienna, Va.) converted a pair of free throw attempts with just over two minutes left to play.

A pair of free throws by Pamela Findlay on the ensuing Air Force possession cut the lead to three points, then a Navy turnover gave the ball back to the Falcons. Cassie Consedine (Fr., Bartlesville, Okla.) tallied her seventh blocked shot of the game to keep the Falcons from scoring on their next possession, but then a missed shot by Gordon gave the ball back to Air Force with just under one minute to play. Following a timeout, Raimee Beck drilled a three-pointer to tie the game with 54 seconds showing on the clock.

Both teams came away empty on their respective next possessions, then Consedine picked up an errant Navy missed shot and scored to give the Mids a 61-59 lead with 33 seconds to play. Beck was soon fouled while starting a drive to the basket and converted both foul shots to tie the game with 14 seconds remaining. After Navy worked the game clock down, Gordon was whistled for a loose ball foul with 1.1 seconds remaining and before the Mids could attempt a shot. Air Force's three-quarter court inbounds pass was intercepted by Consedine to send the game into the extra session.

Navy failed to score on its opening three possessions of the overtime, while Air Force managed only one free throw of its own over its first three trips down the floor. Then Consedine, after grabbing an offensive rebound, and Kim Kreke scored for the Mids and the Falcons, respectively, with Gordon next hitting a jumper to give Navy a 65-64 lead with two minutes remaining.

Findlay missed a three-point attempt for Air Force, but Navy failed to score on its next possession when Kalen Kropa (Jr., Reidsville, N.C.) missed a pair of free throw attempts. The Falcons regained the lead when Brooke Cultra scored after grabbing an offensive rebound, but it was short lived as eight seconds later Davidson connected on her second big three-pointer to give the Mids a 68-66 lead with 1:02 left in the period. Davidson then was fouled after grabbing a defensive rebound and converted both free throw attempts to allow Navy to expand its lead to 70-66 with 47 seconds remaining.

"I knew I needed to knock down the shot," said Davidson of her three-pointer in overtime. "Angela (Myers) drove, then she kicked it back to me and I was open."

The Navy lead was soon down to one point, however, as Kreke answered with a three-pointer of her own with 31 seconds left to play.

Following an Air Force timeout, Navy spread the floor in an attempt to run out the clock. The Mids were successful in running half of the remaining time off of the clock before an off-the-ball foul sent Gordon to the line with 15.2 seconds left to play. She sank both attempts to finish 7-of-7 from the line on the afternoon and give Navy a three-point lead.

Following the Air Force inbounds pass, the ball found itself in the hands of Findlay, who was 5-of-8 from behind the three-point arc in the game to that point, with just over nine seconds remaining. Staying behind the three-point line, she started right, went left and soon went back to her right. As she made the latter move, Consedine rolled off of a screen in an effort to help on defensive. The assistance provided from the 6-3 center to defenders Gordon and Angela Myers (Fr., San Antonio, Texas) worked as Findlay was forced to put up an off-balance shot that hit the right side of the rim and fell to the court as the buzzer sounded.

"We did a great job of switching on their last possession," said Marryott. "K.C. and Angela both played great defense in the time leading down to their last shot. Our defensive effort was the difference in the second half and in overtime."

Air Force knocked down 44.4 percent of its shots in taking its halftime lead, but was held to 29.6 percent shooting in the second half and 37.1 percent during the overtime period. Conversely, Navy began the game by connecting on 37.5 percent of its field goal attempts over the opening 20 minutes, but made 42.9 percent of its shots in the second half and shot 50 percent from the field in overtime.

After being outrebounded on the boards 18-12 in the first half, Navy held a 31-22 advantage in rebounding from the start of the second half through the end of the game. The Mids also converted 22-of-32 attempts from the foul line, while the Falcons were 14-of-19 from the charity stripe.

Individually for Navy, Consedine added 11 points and an equal number of rebounds to her seven blocked shots to record her sixth double-double of the season. The seven rejections breaks her own Navy freshman class record and left her two shy of tying the school standard. She was joined in double figures in scoring by Gordon with 15 points, Morgan Hill (So., Portales, N.M.) with 14 in only 21 minutes of playing time, and by 13 points from Davidson.

Although, Myers scored only a pair of points for the Mids, she finished the game with 11 assists, six rebounds and five steals.

Findlay's five three-pointers helped her to pace the Air Force offense with 23 points, while Alecia Steele, who entered the game averaging 16 points and 9.1 rebounds a game, tallied seven points and seven caroms before fouling out after playing 29 minutes.

The victory for Navy snaps a seven-game skid for the Mids and improves their record to 3-10 on the year, while the loss drops Air Force's record to 6-6 on the season and ends a two-game winning streak for the Falcons.

Navy will return to Alumni Hall Wednesday night when the Mids play host to Fordham in a 5 p.m. game.