HANOVER, N.H. – The Navy women's basketball team nearly picked up its first road win of the season on Friday as it led Dartmouth by six through three quarters before a dominant response by the Big Green (3-4) over the final 10 minutes resulted in a 65-52 loss for the Mids (3-6) at Leede Arena.

Zanai Barnett-Gay (Fr., Glenn Dale, Md.) led all scorers on Friday with 19 points on 8-19 shooting to go along with co-team-highs of three assists and three steals. Sydne Watts (Sr., Canton, Ga.) gave Navy two scorers in double figures as she finished with 11 points, including a pair of three-pointers. In her first start of the season, team captain Morganne Andrews (Sr., Martinsburg, W.Va.) posted a well-rounded statline of eight points, nine rebounds and three steals.

"I thought we controlled the game for the first three quarters, especially on the offensive end," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "We were getting open looks throughout the game. We missed a lot of wide-open shots, but kept getting to the rim.

"We had a tough start to the fourth quarter and I feel that they got some life. Then we missed some open shots and didn't do a good enough job defensively throughout the quarter. We were not disciplined in following the scouting report in the fourth quarter and allowed them to drive the baseline. We also didn't close out good enough on their shooters. We have to do a better job of recognizing when a particular player gets hot. We allowed [Nina] Minicozzi to get open looks and she made us pay. We didn't do a good job rebounding in the fourth and they were able to score and take time off the clock."
 
Navy started out the contest on the road crisply as the Mids jumped out to 10-2 lead over the first 4:07 of play. Using all of its weapons, Navy received baskets from four different players during this initial run with Barnett-Gay leading the way with a pair of field goals. Dartmouth fought back from this early challenge and scored the next five points to draw within three. A floating jumper in the lane by Kyah Smith (Fr., Richmond, Va.) put an end to that streak as she put the Mids back up by five, 12-7 at 2:24. Both teams were fairly even over the final two minutes of play in the first quarter and the teams retired to the bench with Navy ahead, 16-10.

As the Mids struggled with their shot early on, the host Big Green opened the second quarter scoring nine of the first 12 points to tie the game, 19-19 at 2:42. With her team o-fer from three-point range to start the contest, Barnett-Gay found success from beyond the arc on the ensuing possession and Navy quickly went back up by three, 22-19. Similar to the final minutes of the first period, the teams mirrored each other down the stretch as Andrews answered at Dartmouth basket at 1:35 and Watts sank a three-pointer at 0:56 to push Navy back up three to end the half, 27-24.

The Mids extended their lead out to seven with three of the first four baskets of the third quarter. Barnett-Gay bolstered this early run with two layups built from steals by Andrews at 6:30 and 5:22, respectively. With the score 33-26, Dartmouth responded with an 11-6 run to pull within two by the 1:28 mark. Navy's talented freshmen backcourt shined over the final 88 seconds as Smith knocked down a pull-up jumper before Barnett-Gay grabbed a rebound and went coast-to-coast to beat the buzzer and make it a 43-37 game through three quarters of play.

Trailing by six, Dartmouth kicked off the fourth quarter with a 4-5 showing from the field, including back-to-back three-pointers by Minicozzi to take its first lead of the game, 47-43 at 6:24. A pair of free throws by Barnett-Gay got Navy into the scoring column and pulled the visitors back to within two. Those free throws were only augmented by a Watts free throw at 3:53 as the Mids were held without a field goal until 2:11 when Maren Louridas (So., Delmar, N.Y.) sank a three-pointer. With the Big Green leading 56-49, they sewed up the victory with a 7-8 effort at the foul line late to walk away with a 65-52 decision. As a team, Navy shot just 14.3 percent (2-14) from the field in the fourth quarter and 50.0 percent (3-6) from the foul line, while Dartmouth countered by hitting 57.1 percent (8-14) of its shots and 76.9 percent (10-13) of its attempts from the charity stripe.

For the game, the Big Green outshot the Mids in all three categories: 40.7 percent (24-59) to 34.9 (22-63) from the field, 31.3 percent (5-16) to 18.2 (4-22) from three-point range and 70.6 percent (12-17) to 40.0 (4-10) from the foul line.

Dartmouth won the rebounding battle, 44-36 with a 14-13 edge in offensive boards. Andrews paced the Mids with nine rebounds, three on the offensive end and six on defense. Louridas and Barnett-Gay were close behind with respective totals of seven and six caroms.

Defensively, Watts blocked a game-high two shots, while the Mids tallied eight steals led by three each from Barnett-Gay and Andrews.

"As a team, we have to learn when we are up what type of shots we need and when to reverse the ball," said Taylor in closing. "We took some quick shots that ended up being transition baskets on the other end. We need to continue learning from these situations and making corrections."

Navy will take an 11-day break to focus on final exams before picking up its non-conference slate on Tuesday, December 19 versus Goucher. The Mids and Gophers will go head-to-head at Alumni Hall beginning at 6 p.m.