Jan. 24, 2009

Final Stats

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- The Navy women's basketball team held Army without a field goal over the final six minutes of the game and converted 5-of-8 attempts from the foul line down the stretch to help seal a 44-39 victory for the Mids over the Black Knights, Saturday afternoon at Christl Arena in West Point, N.Y.

The Star Game between the teams will be contested Feb. 21 in Navy's Alumni Hall.

"I'm really proud of our team," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper, who was coaching in her first Army-Navy game. "We rebounded and defended very well this afternoon."

The Black Knights (11-8, 2-3 Patriot League) took a 34-33 lead with 5:32 left to play on a pair of free throws from Alex McGuire, but Navy (10-10, 3-2) regained the lead on its ensuing possession when Whitney Davidson (Sr., New Oxford, Pa.) sank a three-point shot. Neither team was able to score again until Davidson hit a jumper with 3:52 remaining to give the Mids a 39-35 lead.

Both teams came away empty on each of their next three respective possessions, then the Black Knights sliced the margin down to three points when Laura Baranek made 1-of-2 free throw attempts with 1:43 showing on the clock. Army's Courtney Wright then stole a pass from Angela Myers (So., San Antonio, Texas) to give the ball back to the Black Knights. That would lead to Erin Anthony drawing a shooting foul on Cassie Consedine (So., Bartlesville, Okla.) with 1:13 left to play. Anthony would convert just the second of her two attempts from the line, however, to make the score 39-37.

The next Navy possession saw Myers miss a three-point attempt, but the offensive carom was gathered in by K.C. Gordon (Jr., Vienna, Va.) before the ball was knocked out of bounds off of an Army player. Navy inbounded the ball and Gordon was fouled a few seconds later. After Navy again inbounded the ball, Kalen Kropa (Sr., Reidsville, N.C.) was quickly fouled by Army's Megan Ennenga and she went to the free throw line with 36.1 seconds left. Kropa made the first and missed the second attempt, but she grabbed her own offensive rebound and found Gordon underneath the basket. Gordon was fouled as she attempted a shot and went to the line with 32.2 seconds to play. She missed the first attempt but sank to second to give Navy a 41-37 lead.

After McGuire missed a three-point shot and gathered in her own miss, she was fouled on another shooting attempt by Consedine with 17.7 seconds remaining. She made both foul shots to cut the margin down to 41-39.

Army immediately fouled Consedine on the inbounds pass, so she walked to the other end of the court to shoot a bonus with 17.1 seconds showing on the clock. She made both attempts to boost the Navy lead back to four points.

The Black Knights were unable to get a shot off until McGuire launched a three-point attempt with nine seconds left. She missed and the carom was hauled in by Kropa, who was fouled with six seconds left to play. Kropa made 1-of-2 attempts in what would be the final scoring of the game.

The first half was close throughout until the Mids scored 8 of the last 10 points of the half to take a 24-17 lead at intermission. The seven-point cushion quickly evaporated at the start of the second half as Army scored the opening eight points after halftime to take a 25-24 lead five minutes into the half.

Consedine made a pair of free throws to give Navy the lead again at 26-25 with 13:21 left to play in the game. She then grabbed a defensive rebound on the Army end of the court, followed by an offensive board and putback to give the Mids a 28-25 lead. Myers soon scored on a layup to give Navy a 30-25 lead, then Consedine made another inside shot of her own to cap an 8-0 Navy run that gave the Mids a 32-25 lead with just under 10 minutes left to play.

Army came right back as McGuire hit a three-pointer for her first points of the day and Anthony hit another trey to cut the Navy lead down to one point with seven minutes remaining. Following a Navy missed shot, Myers immediately stole the ball and converted it into a leaning layup to give the Mids a three-point lead 30 seconds later, then McGuire hit another jumper to make the score 34-33 with 6:18 showing on the clock.

That would be the last field goal of the afternoon for the Black Knights.

"Amy has a lot of offensive weapons on their team, so you can't just focus on either Alex McGuire or their inside players," said Pemper. "A lot of it also was luck. They were getting pretty good looks and I am sure they were thinking those shots normally go in for them, but I also think we were saying the same thing at times."

Both defenses played well in the game as Navy shot 24.6 percent from the field and was just 4-of-22 from beyond the three-point line, while Army converted 29.4 percent of its attempts from the field and was only 3-of-13 from behind the arc. The difference in the game was at the foul line where Navy converted 12-of-16 attempts and Army made 6-of-8 shots from the stripe.

Navy held an 8-4 advantage on the offensive glass in the second half and an 18-10 advantage during the entire game. That helped the Mids post a 10-rebound margin over Army (45-35) on the afternoon. Additionally, the Mids totaled 17 second-chance points and limited the Black Knights to just eight second-chance points in the game.

Consedine tallied 15 points and 12 rebounds to lead Navy in both categories and notch her seventh double-double of the season. Kropa, meanwhile, contributed six points, seven rebounds and five assists, with Gordon tallying seven points and five boards.

Megan Evans led the Black Knights in scoring with 10 points, McGuire scored nine points and Anthony added eight points and four blocked shots to the Army effort.

Navy will next be in action Wednesday night when the Mids play at American in a 7 p.m. game in our nation's capital.