ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Faced with a matchup versus the two-time defending Patriot League champions with a hold of first place on the line, the Navy women's basketball team led from the opening seconds of the contest versus Holy Cross on its way to a 67-56 victory on Wednesday night. A 14-point first quarter advantage and confident playmaking down the stretch when pressed in the fourth quarter enabled the Mids (11-3, 3-0) to knock off the Crusaders (9-5, 2-1 PL) at Alumni Hall and extend their undefeated start to the Patriot League portion of its 2024-25 season.

Kyah Smith (So., Richmond, Va.) led Navy's offensive performance with 15 points on the strength of three three-pointers, with an additional five rebounds and two assists off the bench. Though scoreless in the first half, but effective in other aspects of the game, the Patriot League's leading scorer, Zanai Barnett-Gay (So., Glenn Dale, Md.) rallied in the second half with 13 points to go along with 11 total rebounds and three assists. A sign of the well-rounded offensive effort by the Mids on Wednesday, four more players scored between six and nine points.

"This was a complete team effort," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "We can't be one-dimensional and relying on one player to score 20 every night. We need to have contributions from multiple players. We may have only had two kids in double figures tonight, but we also had two more with nine and others with seven, six and five points. When we got in trouble in the second half, we had some poor shot selection, but we also didn't help that by not crashing the boards like we needed to. We're a talented, hard-working team, we just have to keep believing in ourselves.

"Holy Cross is a heck of a defensive team; they're the two-time champs. Those players out there for them tonight have won a lot of games. I thought they played really well in the second half and got more aggressive. We let the physicality of the game get to us a little bit. We did not do a good job of keeping them off the glass in the second half; that was a big key. We allowed them to out-physical us. I'm a little disappointed that we were out-rebounded tonight."

Toni Papahronis (Jr., Edmond, Okla.) sparked Navy early with five of the Mids' points, including the game-opening three-pointer. Bolstered by her individual success, as well as a Maren Louridas' (Jr., Delmar, N.Y.) triple, Navy was up 10-7 over Holy Cross at the 5:59 mark. Over the next four minutes of action from that point, the Mids rattled off nine more unanswered points to break open a 19-7 advantage. Smith spearheaded this run with five points. After the Crusaders halted the Mids' run with a Simone Foreman jumper, three-pointers on consecutive possessions by Smith and Lizzie Holder (So., Stillwater, Minn.) wrapped up the quarter with Navy ahead 25-11. The Mids' 14-point led was aided by 5-9 shooting from three-point range and a 12-0 advantage in bench scoring.

The teams traded baskets over the opening two minutes of the second quarter to advance the score to 29-15. Following a two-plus minute drought Kaitlyn Flanagan got Holy Cross back into the scoring column with a three-pointer at 5:24. Morgan Demos (Jr., Downers Grove, Ill.) jolted Navy into a quick 6-0 run with an offensive rebound and putback at 4:23 before capping the run with a layup at 1:46. Another Foreman basket was quickly answered back by Smith's third three-pointer of the first half to send the game into the locker room at 38-22.

Held scoreless in the first half, Barnett-Gay got her shot to fall early in the third quarter with back-to-back field goals within the first two minutes. With the score 42-24 at 8:17, Holy Cross fought its way back to a 10-point deficit via a 12-4 run over the next 4:15. As quickly as the Crusaders shaved eight points off the Mids' advantage, the home team fired back with a 9-1 run of its own to go back up 18. The freshman duo of Julianna Almeida (North Arlington, N.J.) and Mary Gibbons (Holden, Mass.) accumulated seven of these points with Gibbons knocking down her first three-pointer of the game during this run. Four straight points by Holy Cross closed out the third quarter with a score of 55-41.

The Crusaders used that late momentum to continue their comeback into the fourth with 12 of the first 14 points of the final stanza to make it a 57-53 game by the 3:14 mark. The ever-dangerous three-point shot that energized the Mids' effort in the first quarter came back for them down the stretch as Barnett-Gay knocked down her first trey of the game at 2:25 to give her squad a bit more breathing room before later slashing to the hoop for her 10th and 11th points to make it 62-56 with 1:21 remaining in regulation. The icing on the Mids' victory came courtesy of an Almeida corner three with 35 seconds left and two final free throws by Barnett-Gay to send the game final at 67-56. 

"I called a timeout early in the fourth quarter and the energy in the huddle was negative," commented Taylor about Navy's start to the final quarter of play. "I told the team, 'calm down. I believe in you guys. We've been in these moments before.' We just needed to relax at that moment and believe in ourselves. We did a great job down the stretch of being confident and playing the way we know how to. I'm really proud of how we responded."

Barnett-Gay's late success scoring extended her streak of games with double-digit points to all 44 games of her young career.

For the game, Navy out-shot Holy Cross, 37.1 percent (26-70) to 32.9 (23-70) from the field, 40.9 percent (9-22) to 15.0 (3-20) from three-point range and 75.0 percent (6-8) to 70.0 (7-10) from the foul line.

The Crusaders edged the Mids on the glass, 48-45 as they grabbed three more offensive rebounds on Wednesday night, 13-10. Barnett-Gay and Demos paced Navy with totals of 11 and 10, respectively.

For the fourth straight game, the Mids had a positive assist-to-turnover ratio with 14 helpers and only seven turnovers. Barnett-Gay also led the way for Navy in that category with three assists. Five other Mids had two assists on the evening.

Defensively, Navy forced 11 Holy Cross turnovers and was credited with five steals. Holder and Smith tied for the team-high with two steals each.

The Mids will look to extend their streak of undefeated Patriot League play on Saturday afternoon when welcome the Loyola Greyhounds to Annapolis. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. at Alumni Hall.