Dec. 9, 2008

Box Score | Photo Gallery

Complete Box Score in PDF Format

TOWSON, Md. -- A great start to the game by the Towson women's basketball team boosted the Tigers to a 65-53 victory over Navy, Tuesday evening at the Towson Center in Towson, Md.

The Tigers (6-1) opened the game by connecting on their first seven shots from the field to quickly build leads of 13-2 and 21-9. In addition to shooting 45 percent from the field in the first half and holding the Mids (4-7) to a 35 percent effort, Towson turned 14 Navy turnovers into 16 points while the Mids scored no points following Towson's 10 turnovers. All of that combined to give the Tigers a 37-20 advantage at intermission.

"We were a little too tentative out of the gate," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "We had 14 turnovers in the first half and a lot of that was Towson, but enough of it was us, too. They did a much better job of converting turnovers into points than we did."

Navy had a much better start to the second half than it did to the game and pulled to within 10 points of Towson at 39-29 less than five minutes into the half. The Tigers responded with an 11-2 run and eventually took their largest lead of the game at 55-34 with just under nine minutes left to play.

"In the second half we talked a lot about the plays we made that weren't tentative and there were a ton of them," said Pemper. "Players were playing more aggressively and confidently in the second half, but we needed to start the game that way against a team like Towson."

Both teams made eight three-point field goals on the night, finished the game shooting 8-of-12 from the foul line and turned the ball over 22 times. Towson, however, shot 44.8 percent from the field and grabbed 41 rebounds while Navy converted 37.7 percent of its attempts from the floor and hauled in 28 caroms.

"We really struggled with Towson's athleticism on both ends of the floor," said Pemper. "It was hard for us to defend them, keep them off the boards and execute on the offensive end."

Cassie Consedine (So., Bartlesville, Okla.) led Navy with 14 points in the game, while Towson's Shanae Baker-Brice paced all players on the night with 16 points.

With the Naval Academy starting end of the semester exams this week, Navy's next game will not be until Dec. 19 when the Mids play at Rider.