BALTIMORE, Md. – The Navy women's basketball team fell victim to a hot-shooting Loyola squad that started off fast and never slowed down as it shot nearly 60 percent on Sunday afternoon in a Patriot League tilt. Starting off the game hitting 12 of their first 14 shots, the Greyhounds (9-17, 4-11 PL) broke out to a nine-point lead through one quarter of play and never looked back on their way to a 74-50 victory over the Mids (1-25, 1-14 PL) at Reitz Arena.
 
The duo of Sydne Watts (Jr., Canton, Ga.) and Maren Louridas (Fr., Delmar, N.Y.) led Navy on Sunday with 27 combined points. Watts shot 50 percent (6-12 FG, 3-6 3 PT) to finish with 15 points, while Louridas added 12 of her own.
 
"We struggled to get locked in defensively today, especially early on," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "I think they hit their first 10 shots inside the arc. I felt that we had been recently getting better defensively. It might not have shown on Wednesday against Lehigh, but we really had been. Today was a letdown. I know we were missing Gia, but that's not an excuse. They went inside to [Lex] Therien a lot and they were able to beat us off the dribble early. They got a lot of easy looks. We tried to trap the ball screen and they'd find someone wide-open.
 
"Once again, we didn't make shots. We were 4-of-15 with only one turnover in the first quarter. We had really good looks, but the ball wouldn't go down."
 
The action at Reitz Arena began evenly as back-to-back baskets by Louridas at 6:00 and 5:14 knotted the game at 7-7. From that juncture, Loyola closed out the first quarter on a 12-3 run to hold a 19-10 lead after 10 minutes.
 
The hosts extended that run out with the first seven points of the second quarter in a matter of 1:55 to go up 26-10. The Greyhounds were bolstered over these opening 12 minutes of the game by an 86 percent shooting percentage (12-14). After Taylor called a timeout, the Mids responded with a 10-3 run to pull back within nine points, 29-20. Watts initially sparked the run with back-to-back baskets, 26 seconds apart before Lindsay Llewellyn (Sr., North East, Md.) knocked down a pair of field goals to round out the run. Loyola recovered over the final 65 seconds of play in the period and scored six of the last nine points to take a 35-23 lead into the locker room.
 
That late momentum carried over into the second half as the Greyhounds recorded the first six points of the third quarter. With the score 41-23, Watts single-handedly drew Navy back into the game with an 11-2 run from 7:34 to 5:50. Four-for-four from the field, Watts knocked down three consecutive three-pointers with a pull-up jumper as the exclamation point. Challenged by the Mids at 43-34, the Greyhounds immediately answered back with a 12-0 run over the next three-plus minutes. Loyola's lead bounced between 18 and 21 the final two minutes as it ended ahead 59-39 after three quarters of play.
 
"They called timeout after that hot stretch for Sydne and we're driving the ball in the lane and then we have a walk," said Taylor about the Mids' third quarter slump. "We talked about how to get back into the game and how when we make passes to not make unnecessarily tough passes. We want to move the ball and get good shots. Three of our first four possessions after our run, we force it and try to thread the needle on two of them and they [Loyola] end up hitting a three on the other end. They ended up shooting 8-of-13 in the third quarter. We may not have turned the ball over a lot today, but when we did it was at extremely inopportune times."
 
Strong free throw shooting aided the Greyhounds in the fourth quarter as the hosts never let their lead fall below 20 on the back of a perfect nine-of-nine showing from the foul line. Navy went with a freshmen-heavy lineup down the stretch and saw its plebes net all 11 points in the final stanza with Louridas knocking home a pair of jumpers to lead the way. Kate Samson (Fr., Richmond, Va.), Bianca Coleman (Fr., Abington, Pa.) and Kelli Giuliani (Fr., Oakton, Va.) all found their way into the box score in the fourth with baskets.
 
"The more minutes our young players get, the more it bodes well for our future," commented Taylor about his lineup in the fourth quarter. "They have to learn how to play together. Right now we don't have all of our freshmen available, but the five that are healthy now, I wanted to get them as much time as possible. They did some really good things there at the end of the game. We have to give them opportunities to get their feet wet."
 
For the game, Loyola outshot Navy, 59.1 percent (26-44) to 37.5 (21-56) from the field, 30.0 percent (3-10) to 23.8 (5-21) from three-point range and 90.5 percent (19-21) to 50.0 (3-6) from the foul line.
 
The Greyhounds also controlled the battle of the boards as the hosts grabbed twice as many rebounds on Sunday afternoon, 34-17.
 
Defensively, Navy turned Loyola over 20 times and were credited with seven steals. Llewellyn led that category with four thefts.
 
The Mids will be back in action on Wednesday night with a home tilt against the American University Eagles. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall.