Nov. 16, 2008

Final Stats

Box Score in PDF Format

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Navy women's basketball team scored 18 of the final 23 points of the game to post a 59-49 victory over Howard, Sunday afternoon at Burr Gymnasium in Washington, D.C. The win evens Navy's record on the young season to 1-1, while the loss came in the season-opening contest for Howard.

The Mids trailed 44-41 with just under six minutes left to play when Angela Myers (So., San Antonio, Texas) sank a pair of free throw attempts to start what would turn out to be a 9-0 run for Navy. Kelly Altschul (Jr., Highland Village, Texas) made two free throws on Navy's next trip down to floor to give the Mids a 45-44 lead. Following a Howard missed shot, K.C. Gordon (Jr., Vienna, Va.) made a layup while being fouled (she would miss the free throw attempt) to make the score 47-44 Navy then, after a missed free throw attempt by the Lady Bison, Myers drilled a three-pointer to cap the 9-0 with 3:45 left on the clock.

Howard's Charae Baulkman sank one free throw to end the scoring drought for the Lady Bison, but Altschul made a spinning layup to push the Navy advantage to 52-45 with 2:42 showing on the clock. Zykia Brown scored a bucket to draw Howard to within five points with 2:15 left to play, with the Navy lead going back to seven points following a pair of free throws by Myers. From there, Whitney Davidson (Sr., New Oxford, Pa.) converted 5-of-6 free throw attempts to seal the victory for the Mids.

Navy scored points on eight of its final nine possessions of the game, starting with the free throws by Myers with 5:48 left to play.

The Mids had taken an early 13-8 lead at the start of the game, only to see the Lady Bison score the next 11 points and eventually take a 27-20 lead with just over two minutes left to play in the half. Howard would hold a 27-22 lead at halftime, and maintained that five-point advantage at 29-24 early in the second half.

"We didn't come out in today's game with the type of intensity that we needed to have," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "So in the second half we needed to learn from our mistakes in the first half. A lot of that was our focus and our competitive fire that we didn't have."

Myers and Davidson quickly drilled back-to-back three-pointers to give Navy a 30-29 lead then, after a free throw by Tamaya Daniels tied the game at 30-30, the Mids scored the next five points on a triple from Emily Cordle (Sr., Rome, Ga.) and a pair of free throws from Myers to give Navy a 35-30 lead.

The Navy lead would reach as many as seven points at 39-32 following two free throws from Davidson that concluded a 15-3 run by the Mids. Howard answered with an 8-0 run of its own to reclaim the lead at 40-39 with 9:19 left to play in the game.

"In this game we needed to put together a string of five good minutes and build upon that," said Pemper. "The emotion and chemistry wasn't there. There wasn't a lot we could hang our hat on in the first half, but the second half was very different. I thought the competitiveness was there and we had some players really step up and make big plays. That's always more important than just talking; it's actually coming through."

After making all four of its free throw attempts during its season-opening game against Ohio Friday and shooting 4-of-6 from the line during the first half Sunday, Navy converted 17-of-19 attempts from the charity stripe during the second half this afternoon. That was a significant difference in the game as Howard was 9-of-14 from the foul line in the game and converted just 7-of-12 attempts from the stripe during the second half.

"The free throws were really big," said Pemper. "They kept the momentum with us.

"This feels good because we earned the win. It wasn't just a `W'; we earned it by making some good plays and keeping our composure."

Both teams shot 34 percent from the field during the first half of the game, but Navy connected on 44.4 percent of its shots from the floor in the second half and held Howard to a 25-percent effort from the field during the final 20 minutes of play. The Lady Bison held a 42-30 advantage on the glass during the game, including a 23-13 lead on the boards after halftime. Despite having less than half as many opportunities -- Howard totaled 20 offensive rebounds to Navy's 7 -- the Mids scored 16 second-chance points in the game and held the Lady Bison to just 8 second-chance points.

Davidson scored 10 of her Navy-best 15 points in the game after halftime, while Myers scored all 12 of her points during the final 20 minutes of play. Myers also led all players on the afternoon with nine rebounds.

Howard's offense was led by Morgan Neal's 15 points, with India Bradford tallying nine points for the Lady Bison.

Navy will continue with its stretch of four consecutive games on the road Wednesday night when the Midshipmen play at Winston-Salem State in a 7 p.m. game. The contest will be aired on WNAV-AM 1430, with the pre-game show starting at 6:45 p.m.