WASHINGTON, D.C. – After struggling the last time out at Army on Saturday, the Navy women's basketball team had an emphatic response on Wednesday night as they led for over 37 minutes and cruised to a 69-55 win on the road at second-place American University. Playing at the unfriendly confines of Bender Arena that has seen the program drop 14 straight meetings since 2013, the Mids (9-14, 5-7 PL) started out fast with back-to-back 19-point quarters and never looked back as their defensive prowess forced the Eagles (9-14, 7-5 PL) into 18 turnovers that subsequently were converted into 23 points by Navy.

Individually, Maren Louridas (So., Delmar, N.Y.) came within one point of matching her career-high with 23 points on Wednesday night. She was lights out from the field as she shot 9-11, including 4-6 from three-point range. Kyah Smith (Fr., Richmond, Va.) and Zanai Barnett-Gay (Fr., Glenn Dale, Md.) tied for second on the team with 12 points each. The duo augmented their statlines as Smith assisted on six baskets and grabbed five rebounds, while Barnett-Gay collected six caroms. Kate Samson (So., Richmond, Va.) filled up the box score with eight points, 11 rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots.

"This was great team win," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "Every player that came into the game tonight really contributed. I stressed to the team before the game that when we defend, we win. I thought that was the biggest key tonight. We played with so much energy on the defensive end. We rotated well and disrupted American a lot; they never got comfortable on offense. We were without Z and Kate for over 10 minutes each in the first half and we never skipped a beat. People came off the bench and immediately left their mark.

"Maren was tremendous tonight. She's improved so much in other facets of her game this season, but to see her knocking down shots the way she was tonight was great to see; she works so hard. I thought Kyah did a good job of controlling the tempo of the game. We had a little stretch in the third quarter where we got a little antsy, but we didn't let get away and settled right back down."

After American broke out to an early 4-2 lead over the opening 73 seconds, a Smith three-pointer at 7:15 pushed Navy into the lead and the Mids were off and running as they scored on three of their next four possessions to pull ahead by seven, 13-6 by the 4:46 mark. Back-to-back baskets from Louridas at 5:06 and 4:46 highlighted this run. The visitors extended their run to 15-2 with a Barnett-Gay jumper at 3:42. With the score 17-6, American won the final three-plus minutes to tighten the contest to 19-12 through one quarter of play. Of Navy's 19 points, 11 came off of turnovers as American gave up the ball eight times in the period.

The second quarter opened with the team's exchanging three-pointers over the first three minutes of play, one for Louridas and one for the Eagles' Anna LeMaster. A 9-2 run over a 92-second span between 6:29 and 4:57 saw the Mids tally points four straight times down the court, including three-pointers by Sydne Watts (Sr., Canton, Ga.) and Louridas. Up 31-17 the teams slowly advanced the score to 33-20 before Navy raced to the finish line and concluded the first half with five straight points, two from Toni Papahronis (So., Edmond, Okla.) and a three-pointer by Louridas in the waning seconds of the quarter. Louridas' trey was her third of the quarter and fourth of the period for the Mids as they once again took advantage of seven turnovers and turned them into nine points.

Up 38-20 coming out of the locker room, Navy immediately went up 20 as Papahronis put back an offensive rebound at 8:25. American fought back over the next four minutes with a 12-4 run to pull within 12, 44-32. The Mids' advantage stayed between 12 and 14 points, until the final 39 seconds of the quarter when Lizzie Holder (Fr., Stillwater, Minn.) and Smith combined for three free throws to close the period up 16, 51-35. Six different Mids tallied points in the third quarter.

The final stanza opened up evenly with both teams notching six points over the first three-and-a-half minutes. With the score 57-41, American rattled off four straight points to pull within 12 before Louridas took over with back-to-back driving layups up the baseline to make it 61-48 at 4:08. She continued spearheading Navy's attack down the stretch with four more points, including a banked in three-pointer as the shot clock was expiring with 22 seconds left in the contest.

In Navy's 69-55, the Mids outshot the Eagles, 38.5 percent (25-65) to 33.9 (20-59) from the field, 31.6 percent (6-19) to 21.1 (4-19) from three-point range and 81.3 percent (13-16) to 68.8 (11-16) from the foul line.

In the rebounding battle, American edged Navy, 42-39 and 12-11 on the offensive glass. Samson led all players with a career-high 11 rebounds.

The Mids handled the ball crisply on Wednesday night with a 13-to-10 assist-to-turnover ratio. Smith paced Navy with a team-high six helpers.

Defensively, the Mids turned the Eagles over 18 times and were credited with eight steals. Samson and Smith each grabbed a pair of steals. Navy was efficient with those turnovers as it out-scored American, 23-7 in points off of turnovers. Additionally, Samson blocked two shots to extend her streak of games with multiple rejections to four and in seven of the last eight games.

"We weren't in attack mode as much down the stretch, but the clock was our friend," said Taylor in closing. "Kyah and Z struggled a bit shooting tonight, but we got such great contributions from up-and-down our roster that we still won by double-digits. I still think we left some points out there. We're getting better every game. The biggest thing for me is that there is a lot more room for improvement. You could see the entire team buying in to our game plan, playing their roles and playing for each other. Tonight was a great response after Saturday."

Navy will be back in action with a home matchup versus Boston University on Saturday afternoon. The Mids and Terriers are set for a 3:30 p.m. tip-off at Alumni Hall.