ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy women's basketball looked to carry over its hot streak at home with a Saturday afternoon tilt versus Loyola. Winners of their past two home games, the Mids (7-14, 2-8 PL) were on their way to that third straight win before a 5:06 scoreless streak to close out the game flipped a six-point advantage over the Greyhounds (6-15, 3-7 PL) into a six-point victory for the visitors from Baltimore by a final score of 50-44. Navy led for over 30 minutes on Saturday at Alumni Hall.
 
The duo of Lindsay Llewellyn (Fr., North East, Md.) and Sophie Gatzounas (Jr., South Hadley, Mass.) led the way for the Mids with 23 combined points, 12 for Llewellyn and 11 for Gatzounas. Both players added five rebounds each to their statline versus the Greyhounds.
 
"We shot 3-16 on our home floor in the fourth quarter while holding a lead, that was obviously the difference in the game," remarked head coach Stefanie Pemper. "We didn't really turn the ball over today. They [Loyola] nearly had twice as many turnovers as we had, so our defense was up to the task. Morgan Taylor did a nice job defending a great player in Stephanie Karcz. We didn't score it great today; we needed other people to fill that role because Morgan was taking care of the defensive side of things. We thought that if we could rebound better that could make a difference in the game, but we got outrebounded by 16. That's a credit to Loyola."
 
Navy opened Saturday's action with a strong 9-2 start over the first 5:42 of play. After both teams netted baskets in the initial 57 seconds of play, the Mids scored the next seven points and held the Greyhounds scoreless for nearly six minutes. Llewellyn, Gatzounas and Montana Braxton (Sr., Cape Elizabeth, Maine) all scored for Navy during this stretch, highlighted by Llewellyn sinking a transition three-pointer off of a Mary Kate Ulasewicz (Sr., Doylestown, Pa.) pass. Loyola had a strong rebuttal to Navy's early success with a run of three consecutive makes from 3:13 through 1:49 to tighten the game to an 11-8 score. Another Gatzounas basket with five seconds left in the quarter helped the Mids garner a five-point lead, 13-8.
 
On the first possession of the ensuing quarter, Llewellyn hit her second trey of the game just 10 seconds in. Trailing by eight points, Loyola was able to shave two points off of its deficit over the next three minutes to make it a 19-13 game at the 6:59 mark. A 5-0 individual run by Morgan Taylor (Sr., Evans, Ga.) helped the Mids grab their largest lead of the game, 11 points at 5:36 with a score of 24-13. Unfortunately for Navy, Taylor's layup was her team's last points of the first half as Loyola scored 10 unanswered to close out the first 20 minutes of play.
 
Coming out of the locker room holding a one-point lead, 24-23, the Mids saw the Greyhounds jump in front for the first time all day as Bri Rozzi sank a three-pointer 17 seconds into the third quarter. Navy immediately fought its way back into the lead as Llewellyn went 2-2 at the foul line and Gatzounas converted layups on back-to-back possession. With the score 30-28 in favor of Navy with 7:30 left to play in the third quarter both offenses went cold over the next four minutes as Loyola made just one field goal and one free throw, while Navy was held scoreless. The Mids found their shooting touch down the stretch in the stanza with a 7-2 run. Four different Mids tallied points as the team pulled ahead 37-33 at the quarter break.
 
Navy held its lead well into the fourth quarter as the team was always up to answer a Loyola basket. The game stayed close as the Mids and Greyhounds alternated scores for the first 4:54. The exclamation point to this segment of play was a Ulasewicz three-pointer to make it a 44-38 game at 5:06. Similar to the end of the first half, Navy found itself closing the half with a lengthy scoreless streak as the hosts were unable to move off of that 44-point plateau for the remainder of the game. Energized by its defensive success, Loyola slowly pushed ahead of Navy by the 2:21 mark, 45-44, before adding five more points to its final total.
 
"We have been talking so much about how poise is so important; we lost it a little bit today at the end," said Pemper. "We had that look in our eyes that it wasn't going to happen when it still could have happened for us. That's not the team that we've been over the last three games. Our women are going to be disappointed that that showed up late in the game, that's for sure. At the start of the fourth we had a nice little run to get a six-point lead and then they just got some big buckets. Karcz grabbing her thousandth career rebound certainly motivated their bench and their team."

In their 50-44 victory, the Greyhounds outshot the Mids 38.8 percent (19-49) to 31.0 (18-58) from the field and 38.5 percent (5-13) to 16.0 (4-25) from three-point range. Only going to the foul line five times on Saturday, Navy was 4-5, while Loyola was 7-12.
 
The Greyhounds held a substantial 16-rebound advantage over the Mids in the final stats, 44-28. Taylor corralled a team-high six boards for Navy, while Gatzounas and Llewellyn each grabbed five.
 
Defensively, Navy forced 19 Loyola turnovers and were credited with 10 steals. Llewellyn finished with a team-high three thefts. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Navy's ballhandlers posted a 13:10 assist-to-turnover ratio on the day.
 
The Mids will have a week off before its next game on Saturday, February 8 when they host the Colgate Raiders in a 4 p.m. tilt at Alumni Hall.