Dec. 29, 2010
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Navy women's basketball team will head west for a pair of games that will be played around the New Year's Day holiday. The Midshipmen will first play at Air Force on Thursday, Dec. 30 (8 p.m. EST) before playing at Seattle on Sat., Jan. 1 (10:30 p.m. EST).
Both host schools will be providing free live statistics and a free video stream of the respective Navy games. Links to all of these multimedia offerings can be found at www.NavySports.com(.)
Navy posted a 4-1 record through its first five games of the season, but the Mids have since dropped five of their last six contests. Though Navy's offensive production has not dropped off dramatically from the first five games (60.0 ppg) to the last six (55.3 ppg), the Mids are allowing opponents to score eight more points a game in the second half of the season (59.0 ppg) of the year than in the first half (51.0 ppg).
Most recently, a 65-56 loss to UMBC on Dec. 21 dropped Navy's record on the year to 5-6. The Mids held a lead of as many as seven points in the second half against the Retrievers, and still held a three-point lead with a little more than three minutes left to play. However, UMBC outscored Navy 13-0 over the remainder of the game to rally for the victory.
Angela Myers (Sr., San Antonio, Texas) led Navy against UMBC with 19 points, while Audrey Bauer (Fr., Lake Zurich, Ill.) knocked down four three-point field goals on her way to tying a career high with 13 points.
Myers enters Navy's western trip needing 18 points to become the 15th player in Navy history to reach the 1,000-point plateau.
Air Force closed out its pre-Christmas slate of games with a 4-7 record. The Falcons have posted a 4-2 record at home and a 0-5 record on the road.
The home team has won all seven games in the Navy- Air Force series that have been played at one of the two service academies. The Mids also won a neutral site game over the Falcons to allow Navy to take a 5-3 record against Air Force into Thursday's game. Though the home team has outscored the road team by an average of 10 points a game over the course of the series, the last three games between the teams have been decided by a total of 12 points. This includes last year when the Mids emerged with a 54-48 victory in Alumni Hall.
Navy missed 15 of its first 16 shots from the floor during last year's game against Air Force, which allowed the Falcons to build an 18-4 advantage over the Mids. Navy started to find a rhythm on offense toward the end of the first half and went into the locker rooms trailing by the score of 21-16. The margin remained at five points early in the second half when Navy went on a 15-2 run to take a 35-27 lead with 11:30 remaining in the game. Air Force promptly whittled the margin down to one point at both 39-38 and 41-40, and then made it a two-point game at 45-43 with a little more than two minutes left to play. A three-point field goal and four straight free throws by Angela Myers (Sr., San Antonio, Texas) boosted the Navy advantage up to 52-43 with 54 seconds left on the clock. Another pair of free throws by Navy gave it a 54-43 lead with only 25 seconds left to play.
The free throw line was a huge statistical difference in the game. Air Force made just 1-of-2 attempts from the charity stripe on the night, while Navy was 15-of-21 from the foul line.
Among returning players for the two teams, Myers totaled 13 points, six rebounds, four assists and four steals for Navy, while Kelsey Berger scored 17 points and Raimee Beck added 14 points for Air Force.
Seattle enters home games on Dec. 29 against Notre Dame and Dec. 30 against Gonzaga with a 4-9 record on the year. The Redhawks, an independent program on the Division I level, are being outscored by an average of just five points a game this season (67.7-60.9 ppg). Elle Kerfoot and Salena Dickerson are pacing Seattle with scoring averages of 11.4 and 10.7 points per game, respectively.
Saturday's game will be the first between the Mids and the Redhawks.
