Nov. 18, 2011

Final Stats

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - A late 7-0 run by the Navy women's basketball team and a strong all-around performance by Jade Geif allowed the Mids to post a 61-58 victory over William & Mary Friday night at Kaplan Hall in Williamsburg, Va.

"We asked the team before the game what this game meant," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "They all said that this would be our `first win' of the year. That speaks a lot to the belief in what they could do. This was a huge win and I am really happy for our team. We certainly respected William & Mary, especially with the way they beat Cornell in their last game."

Navy (1-2) quickly jumped out to a 7-0 lead at the start of the game and held a slim advantage through the remainder of the opening 20 minutes of play. This included a 26-24 lead at intermission.

After William & Mary (1-2) tied the game on its first possession of the second half, the teams traded scores over the next few minutes. The Mids were able to expand their margin to five points on three different occasions, then built a 45-39 lead on a three-point field goal from Chloe Stapleton with 11:15 showing on the clock. The Navy lead was down to five points at 47-42 when William & Mary used an 8-0 run to take its first lead of the game at 50-47 with 7:09 left to play.

Navy answered with a jumper by Geif to cut the margin to one point, then, after a steal by Chantel Lavender, a layup from Alix Membreno gave the Mids the lead again at 51-50 with 5:46 showing on the clock. Membreno would gather in a missed shot by William & Mary's Kyla Kerstetter on the next possession by the Tribe, which would lead to a layup by Geif. Another miss by the Tribe (4:23) resulted in Membreno being fouled with four minutes left to play. She would make the latter of her two free throw attempts to close out a 7-0 Navy run that gave the Mids a 54-50 advantage.

Both teams failed to score on their ensuing trips down the court, then Katherine DeHenzel scored on a layup for the Tribe to slice the Navy lead in half with 3:25 remaining. DeHenzel then stole the ball from Chey Arvin, which led to Janine Aldridge sinking a three-point field goal that gave William & Mary a 55-54 lead with 2:52 left in the game.

Audrey Bauer missed a three-point attempt for the Mids, but the errant carom bounced out of bounds after hitting a William & Mary player to allow Navy to maintain possession with 2:31 remaining in the game. Arvin would drill a three-point field goal 16 seconds later to give Navy a 57-55 lead. After Geif snared the defensive rebound when Jazmen Boone missed a shot on one end of the floor, she would score on a rolling layup on the other end of the court to make the Navy advantage four points at 59-55 with 1:40 left in the game.

William & Mary would again see a possession end with a missed shot, with Membreno grabbing the ball for the Mids with 57 seconds left. Kara Pollinger missed a three-point shot for the Mids, but that miss was grabbed by Arvin, who immediately had the ball stripped away from her. Geif dove onto the ground, gathered in the loose ball and called timeout to keep the ball in the hands of the Mids with 43.8 seconds remaining. Bauer would miss a three-point attempt as the shot clock was expiring, but Geif was there for the offensive rebound. She was fouled on her putback attempt and made both free throws to give Navy a 61-55 lead with 24.5 seconds remaining on the clock.

That six-point lead was cut in half when Jaclyn McKenna drilled a three-point shot with 11.0 seconds left to play. The Mids inbounded the ball to Bauer, who was fouled with 9.5 seconds remaining. She missed the front end of her one-and-one trip to the foul line, with the loose ball going out of bounds to William & Mary with 8.2 seconds left. After a timeout by the Tribe, DeHenzel brought the ball up the right side of the court. The ball ended up in the hands of McKenna who was just to the left of the top of the key and outside of the three-point line. She was closely covered by two Mids and could manage to only force up a three-point attempt just before the buzzer sounded that fell well short and right of the basket.

"We had a lot of challenges to overcome tonight," said Pemper. "We had to overcome the challenge of not making a lot of shots in our first two games, and we scored 35 second-half point tonight. That's a great display of mental toughness. We also were facing a good William & Mary team with a big kid in the middle, a good point guard and a talented shooter, on its home court. They answered all of our big shots. It was a really hard game, but we had a lot of people make big plays for us."

Navy dominated the glass in the game, totaling 17 offensive rebounds and 46 boards in all, while allowing William & Mary to tally just 6 offensive caroms and 26 rebounds for the game.

Helping to limit the Tribe on the glass was Geif, who finished with eight defensive rebounds and 10 rebounds in all to go along with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and five assists. The 19 points was one shy of tying her career-high effort, while her five helpers established a new personal standard.

Joining Geif in double figures for points for Navy was Arvin, who tallied a career-high 14 points. Additionally, three of Arvin's six rebounds came on the offensive end, while both Pollinger and M.L. Morrison gathered in five rebounds apiece.

"Jade and Chey both had terrific games," said Pemper. "We had some timely shots and a couple of players play well. I liked our defense again and our rebounding was big tonight."

McKenna's 17 points led the scoring output for the Tribe.

Navy will remain on the road for its next game, a Nov. 26th game at Mount St. Mary's.