ANNAPOLIS, Md. – In a matchup of two teams coming off of Patriot League wins over the weekend, Navy and Holy Cross gave the fans at Alumni Hall an ultra-competitive 40-minute women's basketball game in which neither team ever held more than a nine-point lead on Wednesday night. Trailing for the first 18:01 of the game, the Mids (8-7, 3-2 PL) overcame a six-point deficit to take a slim 24-23 lead into halftime before slowly putting some distance between themselves and the Crusaders (9-7, 1-4 PL) in the second half. Clutch play down the stretch helped Navy secure its third Patriot League win of the season and second in a row.
 
Jennifer Coleman (Fr., Richmond, Va.) had a hand in all facets of Navy's success on Wednesday as she recorded a game-high 21 points, in addition to 12 rebounds, three steals and two assists. Combined with her freshman backcourt mate Kolbi Green (Baltimore, Md.), the duo totaled 36 of the Mids' 54 points and knocked down all six of the team's three-point baskets. Green finished the contest with 15 points, three three-pointers and three steals.
 
"I'm so excited for our players to get this win," exclaimed head coach Stefanie Pemper. "We have a lot of respect of Holy Cross. This was a tough game and required a good team effort.
 
"Katie Rokus, our assistant, did a great job with the scout. They forced us to change our starting lineup. We had just changed it for last game at Colgate. Our players have done a really good job of working hard and staying ready. They been accepting and adapting well to any changes that we've made. Credit to Holy Cross because they start with two really good post players and Jasmine Bishop got the start tonight. They're a tough matchup for us, but our women played the tendencies and followed the scout pretty well."
 
The action at Alumni Hall opened slowly as the teams combined for 10 points over the first 5:45 of play. Coming out of the first quarter media timeout with the score 6-4 in favor of the visiting Crusaders, Coleman tallied her second made field goal of the game to knot it at 6-6. Following a three-pointer by Holy Cross' Avery LaBarbera in the corner, Navy's Green answered 20 seconds later at 3:21 with a trey of her own to make it 9-9. The Crusaders closed out the period with six unanswered points to take a 15-9 lead into the quarter break.
 
A minute into the second quarter, Coleman single-handedly cut Navy's six-point deficit in half as she swished a three-pointer from the top of the arch. Over the next six minutes, the margin between the Mids and Crusaders bounded between two and five points as every time Navy shrunk Holy Cross' lead to one possession, the Crusaders would respond. With score 23-18 at 1:59, Green dialed up her second made three-pointer of the contest to make a 23-21 game. Tight defense and the three-ball once again came through as the Mids forced a Crusader shot-clock violation and immediately came down the court and set Coleman up for the trey. That basket by Coleman gave Navy its first lead of the game and put the squad up 24-23 going into the halftime intermission.
 
At the break, Holy Cross was outshooting Navy, 33.3 percent (8-24) to 23.7 (9-38). A leading factor in the Mids' one-point advantage on the scoreboard was the 12 turnovers that they forced the Crusaders into. Navy was able to turn those miscues into 12 points. Holy Cross' Lauren Manis, the preseason Patriot League Player of the Year was held to five points and five rebounds on two-of-eight shooting in the first half.
 
The three-pointer was still a weapon for the Mids coming out in the second half as Green swished a trey from the corner at 8:56 to make it 27-23. Manis called her own number on a pair of ensuing possessions to get the Crusaders even at 27-all. Unfazed, the Mids responded with five points as Laurel Jaunich (Jr., Charlotte, Vt.) converted a pair of foul shots and Coleman hit a three within 43 seconds of each other at 5:37 and 4:54. After a brief comeback attempt by Holy Cross saw the visitors cut Navy's five-point lead to two, 34-32, at the 3:07 mark, the hosts closed out the final portion of the quarter on an 8-2 run. Bianca Roach (Sr., Virginia Beach, Va.) put the exclamation point on the run as she netted a pair of layups in the final 30 seconds.
 
Up 42-34 going into the fourth quarter, the Mids built their lead out to nine points at 44-35 when Coleman made a layup at 8:22. Those were her 18^thand 19^thpoints of the game. A layup by Megan Swords on the opposite end of the court at 7:59 were the final points for either team for over three-plus minutes. Trailing by seven points, Holy Cross cut six points off its deficit between 4:40 and 2:01 to make it a 46-45 game. With her team up by just one with 1:34 left in regulation, Coleman calmly hit a jumper in the lane to put the Mids up 48-45. Another clutch field goal conversion came from Jaunich at 0:47 to extend Navy's lead out to five. The Mids' perfect day at the free throw line went the entire 40 minutes as Roach and Green each went 2-2 over the final 16 seconds to close the game at 54-47.
 
"It was really great to get out to five-, six- and seven-point leads in the third and fourth quarters, but then we just had so many empty possessions," said Pemper. "You could feel the game shifting so we had to stop the bleeding a bit. We needed court leadership and we got that through making better decisions, finding open people and hitting open shots. That was exciting to see."
 
Holy Cross barely outpaced Navy in both the field goal and three-point shooting categories as the visitors shot 32.0 percent (16-50) from the field and 29.4 percent (5-17) from three-point range, while the Mids recorded a 30.2 percent (19-63) mark from the field and a 28.6 (6-21) percent number from distance. 
 
Navy was locked in from the charity stripe as the team was a perfect 10-for-10 in free throw attempts. That 100-percent mark ties the program record with the Mids' output on Dec. 4, 2002 versus UMBC (16-16). Only twice in program history had a Navy team been perfect at the line with a minimum of 10 attempts.
 
The Mids won the battle on the boards as they corralled 43 rebounds with 18 of those coming on the offensive side of the court. Coleman led the Navy's rebounding efforts with 12 boards, six on offense and six on defense. 
 
That double-double for Coleman was the fourth of the season for the 5-9 point guard. She barely missed reaching the 23-point, 14-rebound mark that she reached on Dec. 2 at Rider.
 
"There is so much on her shoulders," remarked Pemper about Coleman's play. "Not only is she a freshman in the starting lineup, but she's our point guard and our leading scorer. Her teammates do a good job of talking to her. She has high standards and expectations so they do a good job of encouraging her when they need to and coaching her when they need to; the same with our staff. She's a team player so we're just trying to find the right things to say and the right things to practice to get our women ready for every opponent and Jennifer just wants to be a part of that game plan."
 
Defensively, the Mids forced 19 turnovers on nine steals. Coleman and Green each tallied three steals in the victory.
 
Navy will look to carry its two-game winning streak into a Saturday matchup versus its service academy rival, the Army Black Knights in a nationally-televised contest on CBS Sports Network. The Mids and Black Knights will go head-to-head at West Point's Christl Arena at noon.