ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy women's basketball team wrapped up a weekend of high-level competition at the 2021 Navy Classic with a five-point loss to George Mason on Sunday afternoon. One day after playing a Liberty squad that has played in each of the last three Atlantic Sun championship finals, the Mids (2-5) went up against a Patriot (5-3) squad that is off to a strong start in 2021-22 under the direction of its new head coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis. The fans at Navy's Alumni Hall were treated to 40 extremely tight minutes of action that saw all four quarters decided by three points or less and a final score of 69-64.
 
Jennifer Coleman (Sr., Richmond, Va.) was at the center of most of the action on Sunday as the senior guard had a hand in 16 of Navy's 21 made baskets as she scored 30 points on 9-21 shooting, while assisting on seven more Midshipmen makes. Her scoring output was a career-high, while her assist total tied a career-high. Additionally, Coleman grabbed 12 rebounds over 40 minutes of action. Ciera Hertelendy (Sr., Inwood, W.Va.) aided her fellow senior with a career-high 12 points along with eight rebounds.
 
"We played two quality teams this weekend," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "We're trying to get prepared for the Patriot League. Playing an A-10 team like George Mason and a really good Liberty team gets you battled tested. 'If you're playing a 25-point game, are you really getting prepared for tight late game situations that you know we're going to have in the Patriot League?' Our kids received some real quality minutes this weekend and hopefully they'll keep progressing. We'll continue coaching them up.
 
"We got undisciplined defensively in the second half and that resulted with too many trips to the foul line for Mason. We raised up and jumped on a lot of plays when we shouldn't have and allowed them to drive on us straight up. We can't relax against an athletic team like that. They were attacking the paint at will and we just didn't do a good job of absorbing that."
 
The early action on Sunday was dictated by George Mason from the start as the visitors broke out ahead 9-2 in the first 3:38. For the second straight game, the Mids had trouble defending the three-point line as all three of the Patriots' first three baskets were from beyond the arc. Coleman fought for her team and single-handily drew Navy even with George Mason by the 2:16 mark of the quarter as she scored the next nine points to make it an 11-11 contest. The Patriots' success from three-point range continued down the stretch of the period as Tamia Lawhorne netted her second and third trey of the quarter. The Mids countered this with a three-pointer by Mimi Schrader (Jr., Plymouth, Minn.) and a driving layup by Darryl Langford (Sr., Fayetteville, Ga.). As a team, George Mason shot 5-9 from three-point range, while it was just 1-7 from two-point range in the period.
 
With the score 19-16 in favor of the Patriots, the Mids fought back to tie the game three times over the first 6:35 of play. Coleman was a part of all three situations as she made a jumper at 7:11 before hitting Hertelendy deep for a close-in layup at 4:45 and lastly, forcing a turnover, grabbing the ball and racing down the court for the steal and score at 3:25. George Mason slowly built out a two-point lead going into the halftime intermission with eight points over the last three minutes versus six for Navy.
 
Coming out of the locker room down 33-31, the Mids immediately knotted the game as Hertelendy went 2-2 from the foul line in Navy's first possession. Less than minute later, the Coleman-to-Hertelendy connection struck again for the Mids as Coleman drove the lane and found a wide-open Hertelendy for the easy layup to tie the game again, this time at 35-35. On the ensuing possession, Navy took its final lead of the contest when Coleman grabbed a rebound and went down the court before pulling up for a jumper at 7:57. With the score 37-36, George Mason scored the next five points to take the four-point lead. A pair of three-point plays, the first, a 3-3 showing at the foul line by Schrader and the second, a give-and-go three-point shot and score by Coleman following a Savanna Lewis (Fr., Los Lunas, N.M.) pass helped the Mids even the score at 43-43 at 2:26. The close back-and-forth action continued over the final two-plus minutes of the period as George Mason finished the quarter up 48-46. The Patriots' final seven points of the third all came courtesy of free throws.
 
Leading by two points, the visitors scored the first five points of the fourth quarter to push ahead by seven, 53-46 at 8:28. Coleman recorded the next four points for the Mids as Navy shaved three points off of its deficit. In a scene that would play out more than Navy would like, George Mason continued to hold its lead with successful trips to the foul line. From the 7:50 point of the quarter with the score 54-50, the Patriots converted 11 more free throws, and only made two field goals. Trailing by as many as nine points, at the 6:20 and 4:47 marks, the Mids kept their nose on the grind stone looking to eek out another come-from-behind victory. Navy nearly reached that goal as the Mids scored nine unanswered points between 4:22 and 0:49 to tie the game at 63-63. Lindsay Llewellyn (Jr., North East, Md.) was at the center of this comeback as she hit a three-pointer in transition before later grabbing an offensive rebound and fighting for the physical putback layup with 49 seconds left in regulation. With the game knotted at 63-63, George Mason scored on each of its final three possessions and pulled away for the 69-64 victory.
 
For the game, Navy outshot George Mason, 38.2 (21-55) percent to 27.9 (17-61) from the field and 35.3 (6-17) percent to 30.0 percent (6-20) from three-point range. The Patriots netted over 40 percent of their scoring on Sunday from the foul line as the team shot 29-37 (78.4 percent) from the free throw line, while the Mids were 16-23 for a 69.6 percent mark.
 
In the battle on the glass, the Patriots out-rebounded the Mids, 47-41. George Mason also edged Navy in the offensive rebounding category, 17-9. Coleman tied Mason's Amaya Scott with a game-high 12 rebounds. Hertelendy was second on Navy's squad with a season-high eight boards.
 
"CC had been out of action for nearly four months and she's just rounding back into playing shape," said Taylor about Hertelendy's performance on Sunday. "At the end of last year she was playing pretty well and she was having a really, really good offseason so it was unfortunate that she got injured in the summer to derail her improvement. We're expecting her to give us more days like today moving forward."
 
Coleman's 30-point effort on Sunday was the first of her career and was the first for the program since Taylor Dunham went for 34 points in an overtime game at New Mexico on Dec. 10, 2017. The double-double was the fifth for Coleman in seven games in 2021-22. Through the early part of this season, she's averaging 22.4 points, 9.9 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.4 steals over 38.4 minutes of action per game.
 
"There were a lot of positives from this weekend," said Taylor in closing. "I think the play of Savanna Lewis has come along. Darryl Langford has given us some solid minutes. We were able to run a lot of things through Jenn Coleman. We decided we were going to script some plays and get the ball in her hands. What a game she had today, what a game!
 
"She's made such a commitment to improve her basketball and her body physically. She's done a great job with our strength coach Kelsey Wolfe. I don't have enough superlatives for her, not just on the court, but on what type of leader she has become. It's been really fun to watch her development and to see her reap the rewards!"
 
Navy will conclude its six-game homestand with a Thursday night tilt against Morgan State. Tip between the Mids and Bears is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall.
 
 
2021 All-Navy Classic Team
Co-MVPs: Liberty's Mya Berkman & George Mason's Amaya Scott (both teams went 2-0)
 
Additional All-Classic Team members: 
Bowling Green: Morgan Sharps
George Mason: Tamia Lawhorne
Liberty: Dee Brown
Navy: Jennifer Coleman