ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Playing its first game in 15 days, the Navy women's basketball team came out on Thursday and showed little rust to start the game, but fell victim to a long seven-plus minute scoreless streak during the second and third quarters that plagued the Mids in their eventual 67-58 loss to the George Mason Patriots at Alumni Hall. Ahead 20-19 after the one quarter of play, the Mids (5-5) saw the Patriots (5-5) win each of the next three quarters on the way to George Mason's victory.
 
Navy had a fairly even distribution of its scoring on Thursday night with five players recording six or more points. Jennifer Coleman (So., Richmond, Va.) led the Mids with 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 32 minutes of play. Sophie Gatzounas (Jr., South Hadley, Mass.) joined Coleman in double-figures with 11 points in the contest. Navy's third-leading scorer was freshman Nyah Garrison (Brookhaven, Pa.), who netted nine points on 3-4 shooting from three-point range in 10 minutes off of the bench.
 
"We missed some good looks today," remarked head coach Stefanie Pemper. "Having a long layoff might have had some effect on the rhythm of our shooters. We lost to a good team, that's for sure. They did a nice job in their zone and they had some good seniors out there. Nicole Cardano-Hillary is the reigning A-10 Player of the Year and you saw why tonight. She scored 40 against Penn State earlier this year. She was so unselfish in the second half. We were prepped for her to score off ball screens, but she was unselfish and found her bigs as they moved to the basket. They hadn't been doing that much up to this point in the year, so credit to them and her for making those adjustments. They made some savvy plays throughout the game that really sparked them when they needed it."
 
The game opened with teams trading three-point baskets with George Mason's Sarah Kaminski scoring at 9:44 and Coleman responding 24 seconds later with a trey for Navy. Just over 60 seconds later Coleman added her fifth point of the game with a pull-up jumper in the paint to make it 5-5 at 8:07. The game stayed within one possession for the next five minutes until the visiting Patriots went up briefly by four, 14-10 on a Kaminski three-pointer at 3:02. The next two times down the court for the Mids saw the team net four points with layups by Mary Kate Ulasewicz (Sr., Doylestown, Pa.) and Laurel Jaunich (Sr., Charlotte, Vt.) at 2:36 and 2:09. This kickstarted an offensive ending of the quarter as the teams combined for 11 points, six for Navy and five for George Mason to send the game into the first quarter intermission with the score 20-19 for the Mids. Coleman, Lindsay Llewellyn (Fr., North East, Md.) and Ulasewicz all recorded baskets during the final 93 seconds of the quarter for Navy.
 
After both teams shot over 50 percent from field in the first quarter, the second stanza was plagued by poor ball handling as George Mason turned the ball over seven times, while Navy did so five times. The Mids' defense was credited with four steals during the frame. Offensively, each team made just one basket over the first 3:43 of play in the quarter. A long jumper by Jaunich off of a Coleman dish at 6:17 helped Navy take its largest lead of the game of three points, 24-21. Four points in a matter of 20 seconds by the Patriots quickly extinguished the Mids' lead and flipped the score back in its favor, 25-24 by the 4:20 mark of the quarter. Navy tallied its final points of the half on the ensuing possession when Garrison drove the baseline and found Montana Braxton (Sr., Cape Elizabeth, Maine) for the wide open jumper in the corner to put the Mids up 26-25. A 6-0 run over the final 2:58 of the quarter allowed George Mason to take a 31-26 lead into the locker room.
 
Coming out in the second half down five points and struggling with a 3:59 scoring drought, Navy unfortunately couldn't find its range for the first 3:27 of the third quarter. Luckily for the host squad, George Mason only tacked two points during this run of play so the score increased to just 33-26 before Coleman made a layup at 6:33 to cut it to a five-point deficit again. From that point in the quarter through the 2:04 mark George Mason outscored Navy 13-4 to attain a 46-32 advantage. With their chances of victory starting to fade, the Mids unleashed an 8-0 run to fight their way back into the contest before the expiration of the third quarter. Garrison hit back-to-back three-pointers to spark this comeback effort. Coming into Wednesday night's contest, Garrison was 0-2 from three-point range in 17 combined minutes of action over two games.
 
With the score 46-40 in favor of George Mason, the Patriots started the fourth quarter by scoring six of the first seven points to run its lead back out to 11 points, 52-41 by the 8:20 mark. After the teams traded baskets over the next 28 seconds. Navy tallied the next eight points to make it a 54-51 game. Gatzounas put the exclamation point on this run with a layup at 5:12. The pendulum of momentum swung immediately back into George Mason's direction with an 11-2 run to put the score out of reach for Navy with less than a minute to play. The Mids tightened the final score a bit with five of the last seven points in the 67-58 loss.
 
In the game, the Patriots held advantages in field goal shooting, 49.0 percent (24-49) to 38.7 percent (24-62), three-point shooting, 26.3 percent (5-19) to 24.0 percent (6-25) and free throw shooting, 60.9 percent (14-23) to 57.1 percent (4-7).
 
The taller George Mason squad only won the battle on the glass by one rebound, 36 to 35, though the energetic and active Navy team corralled 16 offensive rebounds versus 11 for George Mason. Coleman was the top rebounder for the Mids with seven boards.
 
Defensively, Navy forced 16 turnovers and was credited with seven steals. Braxton notched a team-high three thefts.
 
"We knew we had to keep them under 60 points to have a shot and we had to be in the 60's," said Pemper. "We were two points from reaching that goal of scoring 60, but we couldn't hold them down enough. It was a great game. We made a couple of nice runs to fight back and cut it to three midway through the fourth quarter. We have to keep our poise a bit better and respond to adversity better. I think that's just a credit to Mason for putting us in those spots."
 
Navy will have 11 days off before hitting the hardwood in Philadelphia at Saint Joseph's University for its final non-conference game prior to starting Patriot League play. Tip-off between the Mids and Hawks is set for 7 p.m. on December 30.