BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Winners of 11 straight games, the Navy women's basketball team fell on the road Wednesday night at Lehigh University. Playing the Mountain Hawks (14-11, 10-5 PL) for the first time this season after Lehigh forfeited the scheduled January matchup between the two teams in Annapolis, the Mids (18-7, 13-2 PL) grabbed a short-lived lead in the first quarter before the hosts took control over the final 38 minutes of action at Stabler Arena. The Mountain Hawks used a 50.0 percent shooting performance and eight three-pointers to bolster their victorious effort.

Individually for Navy, Zanai Barnett-Gay (Jr., Glenn Dale, Md.) filled up the box score on Wednesday night with 14 points, eight rebounds, six assists and two steals over 32 minutes of playing time. Kate Samson (Sr., Richmond, Va.) joined her in double figures with 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting in 14 minutes off the bench.

"We just didn't play well tonight," remarked head coach Tim Taylor. "We have to look in the mirror. We didn't play well enough. We didn't shoot well enough. We uncharacteristically turned the ball over. They [Lehigh] played well. We knew we were going to get their best shot and we did. Flat out, we didn't play well enough to win.

"I thought our post players did a good job. Kate [Samson], Quinn [Boettinger] and Morgan [Demos] went a combined 11-of-14 for 23 points. I thought Kelli Giuliani gave us a good boost off the bench. We said on Monday, we thought that we were going to be playing Kelli quite a bit because she understands their offense. You could see the things that she was doing was affecting them; she really jumpstarted us in the second half. She had a +7 tonight; she made a difference out there for us."

The action was fast-paced from the start as Navy scored on its first two possessions on layups by Morgan Demos (Sr., Downers Grove, Ill.) and Mary Gibbons (So., Holden, Mass.). With the score 4-3 at the 8:41 mark in favor of the Mids, the host Mountain Hawks responded with nine unanswered points over the next two minutes. Trailing 12-4 at 6:35, Navy started fighting back immediately as Barnett-Gay found Samson on an in-bounds pass for a wide-open jumper. That basket energized the Mids as they drew within three points, 15-12, over the next three-plus minutes. After a pair of field goals by the Mountain Hawks extended their lead back to seven, 19-12, with 2:16 left in the quarter, the Mids closed the period with six straight points, two from each of Julianna Almeida (So., North Arlington, N.J.), Christina Liggio (Fr., Colts Neck, N.J.) and Quinn Boettinger (Fr., Schwenksville, Pa.).

Coming out of the quarter break with one point separating the teams, Lehigh's lead fluctuated between one and three for the first five minutes of the second period as every basket had a rebuttal. Samson was the catalyst for Navy's offense during this stretch with a perfect 3-for-3 mark from the floor. With the score 25-24 at 5:34, the Mountain Hawks broke the game open with a 10-0 run over the next four possessions to go up by 11. Trailing 35-24 with 3:42 left in the stanza, the Mids scored six of the next eight points to pull back within seven before Gracyn Lovette crushed their hopes of going into the locker room down by single digits as she banked home a mid-court buzzer beater to make it a 40-30 game at the break.

The second half opened with more back-and-forth action as Zoe Mesuch (Fr., Clintondale, N.Y.) led off play with a three-pointer on Navy's first possession before Alana Reddy had an immediate response with a three-pointer of her own just 14 seconds later. That was the conundrum for the Mids for most of their comeback attempt, getting multiple stops in a row, while trying to shave points off their deficit. The next two times Navy scored Lehigh had an answer to keep the game at a nine-point margin. A short 4-0 run courtesy of baskets by Barnett-Gay and Samson at 5:23 and 3:41 made it a 46-41 game. As quickly as those points were shaved off of the Mids' deficit, the Mountain Hawks added them right back on as they built back up an eight-point lead of 53-45 with 1:20 left in the stanza. A driving layup by Almeida and a pair of successful free throws by Liggio to close the quarter aided the visitors trail by just five, 54-49.

Navy's 19-point quarter was built on 50.0 percent (6-12) shooting from the field and a 6-of-8 mark from the foul line, while forcing Lehigh into five turnovers.

The Mids' valiant comeback effort continued into the fourth quarter as Almeida supported the cause with her first three-pointer of the day at 7:41. With the score 57-52, Lehigh increased its lead back out to eight in short order before Navy went on a 5-0 run between 6:18 and 5:51. Following a Barnett-Gay free throw, Lizzie Holder (Jr., Stillwater, Minn.) stole the ensuing in-bounds pass and converted that chance into two points with a fadeaway jumper before Liggio did the same thing and picked off an errant in-bounds pass and was fouled driving to the hoop; she went 2-for-2 from the foul line. After an exchange of baskets, the score moved ahead to 62-59 with 5:04 left in regulation. Unfortunately, that slim margin was as close as Navy would get for the remainder of the contest as Lehigh went 9-of-11 from the free throw in a parade of trips to the charity stripe, while it was only able to muster two successful field goals and one free throw to finalize the score at 75-64.
  
For the game, Lehigh out-shot Navy, 50.0 percent (24-48) to 42.1 (24-57) from the field, 38.1 percent (8-21) to 14.3 (2-14) from three-point range and 67.9 percent (19-28) to 63.6 (14-22) from the foul line.

The rebounding battle ended up knotted at 31-31. The Mids' effort was bolstered by 10 offensive rebounds. Barnett-Gay led all players with eight caroms.

Navy's ball-handling was paced by 11 combined assists between Barnett-Gay (6) and Almeida (5). In total, the Mids finished with 13 assists on 24 made baskets.

Defensively, Navy forced Lehigh into 17 turnovers and was credited with nine steals. Liggio grabbed a career-high three steals. The Mids' posts combined for three blocks as Demos, Samson and Boettinger all tallied one rejection.

"Lehigh is just a tough matchup for us," said Taylor in closing. "They put us in a lot of tough situations. I thought our kids did a great job of fighting for 40 minutes. We kept fighting back, but unfortunately every single time I felt that we had a chance to get right back in there, there was a stoppage in play. The flow did not work in our favor tonight. Moving forward, we just have to be better.

"Our goals are still in front of us. Its up to us to handle our business. We have some great opportunities still ahead to reach our goals. We have to flush tonight; bad days and bad games happen. Now its on us to respond."

After returning to Annapolis Wednesday night, Navy will go to class and get right back on the road on Thursday in preparation for its Saturday morning service academy showdown at Army. Tip-off between the Mids and Black Knights is scheduled for 11 a.m. with the action televised live on CBS Sports Network.