Dec. 13, 2009

Box Score

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Towson held the Navy women's basketball team to 25-percent shooting from the field after halftime and used a 15-2 run midway through the second half to separate itself from the Mids on its way to posting a 56-43 victory Sunday afternoon at Alumni Hall in Annapolis.

Navy (7-5) held the lead for much of the first half, including a seven-point (17-10) advantage over Towson (6-4) with seven minutes remaining in the half. The Tigers, however, would close the half on a 12-4 run to head into halftime with a slim 22-21 lead.

The early part of the second half saw the score tied three times and the lead exchange hands on a trio of occasions. Down 30-27, the Mids scored six points in a span of 90 seconds on a jumper from K.C. Gordon (Sr., Vienna, Va.), a layup from Angela Myers (Jr., San Antonio, Texas) and another layup from Cassie Consedine (Jr., Bartlesville, Okla.). That gave Navy a 33-30 lead with 16 minutes showing on the clock.

Both teams came away empty on their ensuing possessions, then, after a pair of missed shots and offensive rebounds by her teammates, Haliena Snowden hit a jumper to pull Towson to within one point of the Mids. A Navy turnover was followed by a field goal by Kandace Davis that gave the Tigers the lead, then a pair of misses on Navy's next possession led to a quick three-point field goal by Simona Petronyte that boosted the Towson lead to four points.

After Navy's Megan Matheny (Fr., Lexington Park, Md.) missed a pair of free throw attempts, Shanae Baker-Brice converted two free throw attempts over the next two Towson possessions -- which were sandwiched around a Navy missed field goal attempt -- to take the Towson lead to six points. Another errant shot from the floor by the Mids was answered by a layup from Snowden that capped an 11-0 Towson run.

A jumper from Myers ended the four-minute scoring drought by the Mids, but the Tigers scored the next four points of the game to build a 45-35 lead with 9:14 left to play.

During Towson's 15-2 run, Navy missed all but one of its nine shots from the field, was 0-of-2 from the foul line and turned the ball over twice. Conversely during the same seven minutes of play, Towson was 6-of-11 from the floor, was 2-of-4 from the charity stripe and turned the ball over just once.

"We have to be able to shoot the ball better," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "We have to find a way to put more points on the board."

The remainder of the game saw the gap between the teams close to as few as eight points and expand to as many as 14 points.

After shooting a respectable 32 percent from the floor in the first half, Navy converted just 8-of-32 (25%) attempts from the field in the second half. This included 2-of-13 (15.4%) shooting for the Mids from outside of the three-point line. Towson, which shot nearly 36 percent from the field in the first half, upped its percentage to 43 percent (13-of-30) after halftime. The Tigers also held a 27-18 advantage over Navy on the glass over the final 20 minutes of play.

"Towson turned their intensity level up in the second half," said Pemper. "We needed to make more of a headway in the first half when we had the chance. I think we had a good defensive gameplan coming into the game and for the most part executed it well. On offense we need to stick together and start doing all of the little things that we need to, such as making the right decision with the ball, finding the open person, executing better and capitalizing on opportunities when they come along."

Consedine led all players in the game with 15 points, but her bucket with 16 minutes left to play that gave the Mids a 33-30 lead would prove to be her final points of the contest. Two days after scoring 15 points in Navy's loss to Delaware, Kristin Bowen (Sr., Monroeville, N.J.) added 13 points to the Navy effort Sunday.

A trio of Tigers ended the game scoring in double figures. Snowden's 14 points gave her the scoring honors on her team, while Petronyte and Baker-Brice tallied 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Consedine, Snowden and Towson's Katrina Wheeler all hauled in seven rebounds in the game, with Bowen, Myers, Chey Arvin (Fr., Noblesville, Ind.) and Baker-Brice all grabbing six caroms. Additionally, Myers, Petronyte and Baker-Brice all dished out five assists for their respective teams.

Navy will take the next week off from competition due to end of the semester exams at school. The Mids will then play host to Air Force on Dec. 22 to close out their pre-holiday slate of games.