Final Stats

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- The Navy women's basketball team held Lehigh to just 25 percent shooting while connecting on 38 percent of its own shots in a 50-44 victory by the Mids over the Mountain Hawks Wednesday night at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa.

The result leaves the two teams in a tie for third place in the Patriot League standings (9-6) with three regular season games remaining, but it was the second win of the season by Navy over Lehigh this year.

Lehigh entered the game averaging a league-best 71.4 points a game, but the Mids held the Mountain Hawks to a season-low 44 points for the second time this season. Navy won a 47-44 decision earlier this year.

"We haven't felt we have been a really strong zone team this year," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper, "so we have worked on it in practice. I'm proud for the team in that the things we have been working on they did well tonight. I thought they followed the game plan really well. We had to make a couple of changes in our zone to have a chance at being effective, so it is nice when you see the players put in the time and focus for that and see it pay off. We feel Lehigh has three of the better scorers in the league, we think they are such a tall task, and to have a chance to win tonight we had to be really buttoned up defensively. I liked our team effort."

The score was tied at 13-13 when Navy scored on each of its next three possessions to take a 20-13 lead with 8:36 remaining in the half. Taylor Dunham started the spurt with a layup, then a steal by Justice Swett led to Sarita Condie draining a three-point shot. Swett would grab a defensive carom to end the next Lehigh trip down the court, with Condie next scoring on a layup to close out the run.

Lehigh slowly cut the margin down to four points at 21-14, but the Mids closed the first half on a 7-2 run to take a 28-19 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

Swett would end the half with nine rebounds, while Condie tallied seven points in the frame.

It took over three minutes of clock time in the second half before any points were scored, and it came on a three-point field goal by Hannah Fenske that stretched the lead for the Mids to 31-19. Navy's lead would soon be 14 points when Danielle Poblarp connected on a three-point shot of her own to make the score 36-22 with 12:23 left to play.

The margin stayed in double figures until a 5-0 run by Lehigh sliced the game down to 41-33 with 3:52 showing on the clock. Dunham responded with a long jumper to boost the difference back to 10 points at 43-33 with 3:33 left to play.

It would soon by a seven-point game -- 44-37 -- after a layup by Lehigh's Sarah Williams with 1:56 remaining to play. Dunham came up with another big play to thwart the Mountain Hawks as she responded on Navy's next trip down the court with a three-point field goal to stretch the lead back to double digits at 47-37 with 94 seconds left in the contest.

"Some calls had gone against us, they had hit a couple of big shots and Lehigh was changing defenses which is tough," said Pemper of the sequence leading to Dunham's triple "We had diagrammed how we wanted to attack that particular defense. I thought our team was patient with taking time off the clock and Taylor stepped up and knocked it down."

Williams scored on the next Lehigh possession then, after a Lehigh timeout, the Mountain Hawks stole the inbounds pass and Amina Affini promptly hit a three-point shot to cut the score down to 47-42 with 1:14 still to play. That was followed by another Lehigh timeout, after which the Mountain Hawks fouled Haley Unger prior to the Mids being able to inbound the ball.

Unger made just one of two free throws to make it a six-point game. The Mountain Hawks sent the ball inside to Williams on their next trip down the court, but Marina Muenster was there for her fourth block of the game, with Condie scooping up the lose ball with one minute left. The Mids were able to run 12 seconds off the clock before Dunham was fouled. She too made just one of two free throws (49-42), but Navy's defense forced Lehigh into a missed shot that was snared by Dunham with 35 seconds remaining. Dunham was fouled with 13 seconds still to play and, her lone made free throw pushed the lead to 50-42.

"Marina had a nice presence with her four blocks and stayed out of foul trouble," said Pemper. "I thought the game got really physically about halfway through the second half and it was right around when Haley had three (fouls), and she finished with three. That was really key; Marina and Haley were able to stay on the court and make shots tough for them. And then we needed five people rebounding."

Lehigh made 24.1 percent (7-29) of its shots in the first half and 25.7 percent (9-35) of second-half efforts. Conversely, Navy made 41.4 percent (12-20) of ifs first-half shots and 33.3 percent (7-21) of its attempts after halftime.

Lehigh attempted 64 shots to Navy's 50 -- partly due to the Mountain Hawks holding a 20-7 advantage in offensive boards -- though the Mids held a 19-16 advantage in field goals made. Despite the disparity in offensive caroms, the Mountain Hawks scored just eight second chance points while the Mids tallied seven such points.

Both teams had eight steals, Lehigh turned the ball over 14 times to Navy's 13, and the Mids recorded five blocks to three by the Mountain Hawks.

Dunham's 12 points made her the lone Mid to reach double figures, but Unger, Condie and Fenske each scored seven while both Chloe Stapleton and Poblarp chipped in five. Poblarp also contributed five assists to Navy's effort.

Swett recorded just two points in the game, but she also accrued 13 rebounds and four steals.

"Justice seemed to be all over the floor," said Pemper. "Getting deflections, getting loose balls, getting defensive rebounds, helping on defense in really intelligent ways; we find her to be so unique that she can play 32 minutes and score two points and have such an impact on the game.

"We are a `make the extra pass' type of team. We have been trying to really impress upon everyone to play your game, be aggressive and the importance of knocking down shots. A couple of ways we could have played better, we missed a lot of good looks in the first half, so we can shoot better and therefore play better. So that is exciting to come on the road and get a good iwn and still feel you can get a little better. We're just trying to find the right offensive and develop those skill sets and get some high percentage shots."

Williams posted 12 points to lead the Mountain Hawks -- she too was the lone player on her team to reach double figures -- while Lexi Martin snared 17 caroms.

Navy will close the road portion of its regular season Saturday when the Mids play at Holy Cross.

Patriot League Standings (3 games left)
13-2 American
12-3 Army
9-6 Navy
9-6 Lehigh
8-7 Holy Cross
8-7 Bucknell
5-10 Lafayette
5-10 Loyola
4-11 Colgate
2-13 Boston U.