Final Stats

EASTON, Pa. -- The Navy women's basketball team limited Lafayette to 28 percent shooting in a 59-43 victory by the Mids (21-4, 11-3 Patriot League) over the Leopards (9-15, 5-9) Wednesday night at the Kirby Sports Center in Easton, Pa. The win was Navy's fifth in a row and kept them in a tie for second place in the league standings with Bucknell with four games remaining in the regular season.

"We just think it was a big win," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "Lafayette was coming off of a good win over Loyola, we were coming off a pretty emotional win at Army."

Neither team held any kind of significant lead in the early part of the game until Navy closed the half on a 13-2 run to head into halftime with a 28-21 advantage. Sophie Gatzounas (Fr., South Hadley, Mass.) had a pair of triples and a made free throw during that half-closing spurt.

"We had a great spark off the bench in the first half from Sophie," said Pemper. "Lafayette had gotten off to a lead (19-15), so it was a really important, big spark."

The Mids separated from the Leopards in the third quarter. Navy outscored Lafayette 22-11 in the frame to build a 50-32 lead through 30 minutes of play.

"It was a sloppy game to start," said Pemper. "We talked (at halftime) about whichever team brought the energy and started playing well first could really have the upper hand."

Navy shot 40.9 percent (9-22) in the third quarter and held Lafayette to just three made field goals (3-9, 33.3%). Half of Navy's 22 points in the stanza were on second chance opportunities. The Mids snared eight offensive caroms in the quarter and held Lafayette to just two offensive boards in the 10 minutes of the game.

"Lafayette certainly has a size advantage over us, which can be challenging," said Pemper. "Laurel Jaunich (So., Charlotte, Vt.) having six offensive rebounds (four in the third quarter) was really impressive."

Kaila Clark (So., Hughesville, Md.) nearly outscored the entire Lafayette team in the quarter as she scored nine points to go along with five rebounds.

"Kaila was really good in the third quarter, and that was the difference," said Pemper.

Navy maintained a lead of at least 14 points over the rest of the game.

The Mids shot 34.4 percent from the floor in the game, which included an 8-24 (33.3%) showing from three-point land. On the other end of the court, the Leopards were 15-52 from the field and just 5-15 from three-point range. Additionally, Navy was 7-10 from the foul line while Lafayette was 8-16 from the charity stripe.

Navy committed just five second half turnovers, which was half of what the Mids committed in the opening 20 minutes of the game. Lafayette committed 11 first half turnovers and 21 turnovers on the evening. That helped Navy to a 34-24 advantage in field goal attempts in the second half (Lafayette outshot Navy 32-30 in the first half). The Mids held a 19-9 edge in points scored after turnovers for the game.

"It (scoring after turnovers) was important," said Pemper. "I think we had 24 points after their turnovers in the first game. We talked about trying to do that again. But honestly they (Lafayette) started that first. We had the turnovers in the first half and they were trying to transition us. They are number three in the league in steals and we are number one and in the first half that was flipped (Lafayette had eight steals and Navy had four). We wanted to end the game taking better care of the ball, not giving them steals and us getting some. Really pleased the game ended the way we wanted (Navy totaled six second half steals to just one for Lafayette)."

Clark would notch a double-double of 13 points -- all 13 points came in the second half when she was 6-9 from the floor --10 rebounds and two blocks, Gatzounas paced the Mids with 16 points, Taylor Dunham (Sr., Fort Belvoir, Va.) made four three-point field goals and scored 14 points and Hannah Fenske (Sr., Albuquerque, N.M.) dished out seven assists.

"Hannah," said Pemper, "not a great shooting night (0-7), but seven assists were key. She is so important to us offensively. Laurel has been important to us offensively lately as a scorer, but you saw it tonight on the offensive boards.

"I felt we got nice contributions. We hit a good rhythm, and a lot of that was just effort and hustle."

Navy will be back in Alumni Hall Saturday at 5:30 p.m. against Boston U. The Mids will recognize their three-member Class of 2018 prior to the start of the game.