Dec. 22, 2009

Box Score

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- After a slow start to the game, the Navy women's basketball team had a fast finish to post a 54-48 victory over Air Force Tuesday night in Alumni Hall. The win stops a two-game skid for the Mids and improves their record to 8-5 on the year, while the Falcons fall to 2-9 on the season with the defeat.

Navy struggled coming out of the gate tonight, missing 15 of its first 16 shots from the floor and turning the ball over seven times. Included in that 1-of-16 stretch by the Mids was 0-of-12 shooting from outside of the three-point arc. Air Force, in turn, began the game connecting on 8 of its first 17 field goal attempts to build an 18-4 advantage midway through the half. The Mids would soon start to find a little of their rhythm on both ends of the court and outscored the Falcons 12-3 over the remainder of the half to head into the break trailing 21-16.

"To some degree our start could be attributed to a lot of missed shots," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "But we also started the game not very sharp on either end of the floor and not following the game plan we had put in place on either offense or defense."

The margin separating the two teams remained at five points -- 25-20 -- early in the second half when the Mids went on a 15-2 run to take a 35-27 lead with 11:30 left on the clock. Chey Arvin (Fr., Noblesville, Ind.) began the run for the Mids with an old fashioned three-point play to pull Navy to within two points of Air Force. Neither team scored for nearly two minutes until Air Force head coach Ardie McInelly was hit with a technical foul during her protest of an offensive foul whistled on the Falcons. That sent Angela Myers (Jr., San Antonio, Texas) to the line where she converted both free throw attempts to knot the score at 25-25. With the Mids retaining possession of the ball, a three-point field goal from Jasmine Pitts (Fr., Long Beach, N.Y.) gave Navy its first lead of the game at 28-25.

An offensive rebound and putback by Kelsey Berger cut the gap down to one point, but Navy scored the ensuing seven points of the game to cap their run. Destini Henderson (Fr., Huntsville, Texas) scored on a jumper, Pitts drilled another three-point field goal and Myers scored on a fastbreak layup to give the Mids the 35-27 lead.

After the teams traded the next four buckets to keep the margin at eight points -- 39-31 with nine minutes left -- Air Force went on a 7-0 run of its own to close to within 39-38 with a little more than five minutes remaining. Navy would increase its lead to three points on a pair of free throws by K.C. Gordon (Sr., Vienna, Va.) on its next possession, but Jamela Satterfield grabbed an errant rebound and scored on a short jumper to pull Air Force back to within one point of the Mids.

Arvin fed Kristin Bowen (Sr., Monroeville, N.J.) for a layup on the next Navy possession, then an offensive foul by Air Force's Dymond James gave possession back to the Mids with 3:25 left to play. The Arvin to Bowen connection worked again on the very next possession to give Navy a 45-40 lead. Both teams missed long jumpers on their next times down the floor, then Raimee Beck sank a three-point field goal for the Falcons to make it a two-point game with 2:17 left to play.

Gordon missed a shot from inside of the paint for the Mids, but Arvin first grabbed the offensive rebound and then hit a three-point field goal to boost the Navy lead back to five points with 100 seconds remaining in the game. Beck would miss a three-point attempt for the Falcons before Air Force quickly fouled Myers to send her to the free throw line. Myers converted not only those two attempts from the line, but two more after she was fouled followed an Air Force turnover on its next offensive possession. Her fourth free throw gave Navy a 52-43 lead with 54 seconds left in the game.

Beck missed another trey attempt and that led to Arvin being fouled with 35 seconds left. She sank just one of her free throw attempts, however, but an Air Force turnover with 26 seconds left led to Pitts being fouled sent to the charity stripe. She too made just one of her two attempts, but it concluded a 9-0 Navy run that gave the Mids a 54-43 lead with just 25 seconds showing on the clock.

Air Force closed the scoring with a Berger three-point field goal with 16 seconds left and a Berger jump shot at the final buzzer.

"We came away with some good defense stops as the game went on those gave us a lot of energy," said Pemper. "We did a good job on those few possessions that Air Force played us in man defense, and we had success in our transition game. We passed up some quick three-point attempts and forced Air Force to play defense a little longer than they had to at the start of the game."

After consistently misfiring over the opening 10 minutes of the game, Navy connected on 15-of-37 field goal attempts (40.5%) and 5-of-15 three-point field goal attempts (33.3%) over the final 30 minutes of the contest. Conversely, after its hot shooting at the start of the game, Air Force connected on just 13-of-39 attempts from the field over the remainder of the game.

Navy also was helped in its win by shooting 15-of-21 from the foul line while Air Force was just 1-of-2 from the charity stripe on the night. The Mids also held an 8 to 0 advantage in blocked shots over the Falcons.

Myers led the Mids in scoring with 13 points while adding six caroms, four assists and four steals, Pitts scored 10 points and Arvin contributed seven points, eight boards, five assists and two blocks.

Berger led all players in the game with 17 points, with Beck scoring 14 points for the Falcons. Both players also snared a team-high seven rebounds in the game.

Navy, now assured of its first winning non-league campaign in four years, will close out its pre-conference schedule with games Jan. 2 at Harvard and Jan. 5 at Dayton.