Nov. 21, 2009
Final Stats
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Liberty outscored the Navy women's basketball team 31-11 in the second half to rally and defeat the Midshipmen by the score of 55-43 Saturday night at Alumni Hall in the championship game of the Navy Classic. The Lady Flames improve to 4-0 on the season with the win while the loss drops the Mids to 4-1 on the year.
"We had too many turnovers in the second half and we didn't do as good of a job as we needed to on the boards," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper.
The night started off great for the Mids as Navy quickly took a 20-4 lead over Liberty just eight minutes into the contest. The Lady Flames, defending Big South Conference champions, proceeded to slowly chip away at the deficit. Liberty ended the first half on a 7-2 run (to close to within 32-24), then began the second half with a 20-3 run to pull ahead of the Mids by the score of 44-35 with 8:35 remaining in the game.
Navy cut the lead down to five points at both 46-41 and 48-43, but Liberty closed the game on a 7-0 run to secure the victory.
"Liberty picked up its intensity in the second half and we couldn't keep pace," said Pemper.
After shooting 50 percent from the floor in the first half (11-of-20), Navy was held to 18.2-percent shooting (4-of-22) in the second half. Conversely, Liberty shot 37 percent from the field in the first half before knocking down 42.3 percent of its shots after halftime.
The Mids, who connected on 11 three-point field goals Friday night against Loyola, were just 4-of-20 from beyond the three-point line Saturday.
Liberty also held a 40-26 advantage over Navy on the boards, including a 17-9 edge on the offense glass.
Navy forced Liberty into 18 turnovers in the game while committing 17 of its own, but the Mids turned the ball over 12 times after halftime and forced the Lady Flames into eight second-half turnovers.
Cassie Consedine (Jr., Bartlesville, Okla.) scored nine of Navy's first 14 points of the game, but was held to just five more points over the rest of the night. She would end the game leading the Mids with both 14 points and nine rebounds. Her Navy classmate Angela Myers (Jr., San Antonio, Texas) scored nine points and dished out five assists in the game.
Liberty's Devon Brown scored 15 of her game-high 19 points in the second half. She also hauled in a game-best 11 rebounds for the Lady Flames.
Navy's 4-1 record is the best for the Mids since starting the 1997-98 season with a 5-0 record.
"We don't want this loss to set us back," said Pemper. "I really like how our team is coming along."
Navy will next be in action Tuesday night when the Midshipmen play at Delaware State.
