Lehigh Holds Off Navy Women's Basketball Team

Jan. 14, 2009

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- A late 7-0 run by the Navy women's basketball team forced overtime in its game with Lehigh Wednesday night at Alumni Hall, but the Mountain Hawks scored seven of the final eight points of the extra period to leave Annapolis with a 66-63 victory over the Midshipmen.

Lehigh has now won the last three games in the series with Navy, with those three contests decided by a total of nine points.

The Mountain Hawks (13-4, 2-0 Patriot League) went into halftime holding a 22-17 lead over Navy (7-10, 0-2) and quickly extended their advantage to as many as 11 points on three different occasions early in the second half. Navy would whittle a 34-23 deficit down to 35-31 with 13:13 left in regulation, then cut the margin down to as few as two points at both 37-35 and 39-37. Lehigh slowly boosted its lead back to as many as nine points at 52-43 with just under five minutes left on the clock and the Mountain Hawks still held a seven-point gap (58-51) over the Mids following a pair of free throws by Kristen Dalton with 1:39 left to play. Those free throws came as a result of the fifth foul called on Navy's Cassie Consedine (So., Bartlesville, Okla.), who had scored 15 of her 18 points in the second half.

"Shots weren't falling for us in the first half and we became a little frustrated," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "But we figured that out and overcame some adversity due to foul trouble in the second half."

The Mids were able to score a pair of quick points with the clock stopped when Angela Myers (So., San Antonio, Texas) was fouled and converted a pair of free throw attempts with 1:26 to play. Lehigh came away empty on its next possession, then Myers found Morgan Hill (Jr., Portales, N.M.) inside for a spinning short jump shot to make the score 58-55 with 49 seconds left to play.

Lehigh advanced the ball over halfcourt and then called timeout with 34 seconds showing on the clock. Ten seconds later, Erica Prosser drove the right side of the free throw lane and was called for a charge to turn the ball back over to Navy. The Mids struggled, at first, to find a player open to take a shot from outside of the three-point arc. Soon, the right-handed Whitney Davidson (Sr., New Oxford, Pa.) leaned left and drained a three-pointer to tie the game at 58-58. Lehigh's ensuing possession saw Prosser miss a jumper with five seconds remaining. The rebound was hauled in by Navy's Kalen Kropa (Sr., Reidsville, N.C.), who saw her half-court shot at the buzzer hit the right side of the backboard and fall to the ground to end regulation.

This was the second game this season in which Davidson sank a three-point shot towards the end of the game to send the contest into overtime. The first time she accomplished this was against Dayton when she drained a triple with four seconds left on the clock.

"I was pleased that we didn't back down and made a big push at the end of regulation," said Pemper. "It was exciting. It was great that we had the fight in us and that people stepped up and made plays, shots, screens and rebounds for us."

Navy struck first in the extra period when Hill again found herself open inside of the lane on the first possession of overtime. The Mids had the chance to boost their lead after Lehigh misfired on their first attempt of the period, but Davidson missed the front end of a bonus for Navy. That led to Williams going to the line for Lehigh, where she made the first but missed her second attempt. She would grab her own errant shot, however, but Myers would steal the ball from Dalton and go the length of the court for the basket to give Navy a 62-59 lead. Prosser redeemed herself with a jumper on the next Mountain Hawks possession to make it a one-point game halfway through the period.

There would be no scoring over the next five possessions of the game, then Alexa Williams hit a jumper to give Lehigh a 63-62 lead with 58.8 seconds remaining. The Mids missed a pair of shots on their next possession, then Prosser was sent to the foul line with 18.8 seconds showing on the clock. She converted both attempts to give Lehigh a 65-62 advantage.

The Mids again had a hard time getting a potential game-tying three-point attempt off, and soon an off-balanced Davidson was fouled just inside of the arc with 3.9 seconds to play. She made the first attempt to pull the Mids to within two points, then intentionally missed the second. Williams was there for Lehigh to grab the bouncing ball and she was immediately fouled with 2.1 seconds remaining. She would make the first (66-63) and miss the second of her two attempts. Kelly Altschul (Jr., Highland Village, Texas) grabbed the carom, but the Mids were unable to advance the ball too far before time expired.

Navy started the game by shooting 21.9 percent from the field and 18.2 percent (2-of-11) from behind the three-point line in the first half, but shot a sizzling 51.9 percent from the floor and 55.6 percent from beyond the arc (5-of-9) during the second half. Navy made one more field goal (23-22) and four more three-point field goals (7-3) than Lehigh did in the game, but the Mountain Hawks were 19-of-27 from the foul line while the Mids were 10-of-15 from the stripe.

Lehigh entered the game shooting a league-best 44.2 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from behind the three-point line, but Navy held the Mountain Hawks to a 35.5-percent effort from the floor and a 3-of-17 night (17.6%) from three-point range.

"It was our best team defensive effort of the season," said Pemper.

Consedine scored just three points on 1-of-10 shooting from the field in the first half, but was 5-of-10 from the floor and in tallying her 15 points after halftime. She was joined in double figures by Davidson's 12 points and by 10 points from Hill, who was a perfect 5-of-5 from the floor.

Lehigh's Prosser scored 22 points to lead all players in the game.

Navy returns to Alumni Hall Saturday night when the Mids play host to Lafayette in a 7 p.m. game.

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