Wednesday, January 21
Annapolis, Md.
7 p.m.
Lehigh University
4-312-5 / PL
44
at
47
Navy
5-211-7 / PL
1
2
F
Lehigh
21
23
44
Navy
23
24
47
Mountain Hawks fall 47-44 in defensive battle at Navy
1/21/2015 9:07:00 PM | Women's Basketball
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Despite holding its opponent to a season-low 47 points, the Lehigh women's basketball team struggled to get anything going offensively and lost a tight 47-44 battle at Navy Wednesday night in Alumni Hall. Lehigh trailed by seven with just over eight minutes to play before coming back to take a one-point lead with 1:30 on the clock, but Navy's Hannah Fenske scored the final five points of the game to help the Mids take over sole possession of second place in the Patriot League standings. Lehigh falls to 12-5 overall and 4-3 in league play with the loss, while Navy improves to 11-7 overall and 5-2 in the Patriot League.
"This was certainly not our best game on the offensive end and Navy did a really good job taking us out of what we wanted to do," said head coach Sue Troyan. "We never really got into any sort of offensive rhythm and you have to give credit to a good Navy defense that played very well tonight. This certainly was a good game for us defensively as well, so we are happy with that effort."
Sophomore Lexi Martins tallied her 12th double-double of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Junior Kerry Kinek followed closely behind with nine points, 11 rebounds and a season-best six assists. Senior Katie O'Reilly chipped in nine points and freshman Quinci Mann contributed eight.
Lehigh finished the game shooting 31 percent (18-for-58) from the field and 25 percent (5-for-20) from three-point range. The Mountain Hawks held Navy to a 27.7 percent (18-for-65) clip from the field, but the Mids shot 7-for-16 (43.8 percent) from downtown. Navy held a 48-44 rebound advantage and scored 20 points off of 13 Lehigh turnovers. The Mountain Hawks forced 11 Navy turnovers, but were only able to turn it into four points.
The Mids were led by Fenske with 11 points and Taylor Dunham with ten.
The Mids got out to a 4-0 start and held the Mountain Hawks scoreless for the first three minutes of the contest until a three-pointer from junior Elizabeth Jordan was followed by an O'Reilly layup and Lehigh jumped out front 5-4 with just over 16 minutes on the first-half clock. The game was tied at seven two minutes later, before a Martins free throw and layup from junior Elizabeth Sharlow gave Lehigh a 10-7 lead at the second media timeout.
Navy pulled within one at 10-9 until Martins tossed in back-to-back layups to put Lehigh up 14-9 with 7:24 on the clock. Four points from Navy's Ashanti Kennedy helped the Mids close the gap to 16-13, but a Mann three-pointer was followed by a fast-break layup from O'Reilly as Lehigh jumped ahead 21-13 with 3:09 to play in the first half. The Mids answered by closing the half on a 10-0 run that was capped off by a pair of three-pointers from Sarita Condie to give Navy a 23-21 lead heading into halftime.
Navy held a 22-20 rebound advantage at halftime and scored 13 points off nine first-half Lehigh turnovers. Lehigh shot 36 percent (9-for-25) from the field in the opening term compared to Navy's 30.3 percent (10-for-33) clip.
The Mids opened the second half on a 7-2 run to pull ahead 30-23, but five straight points from Kinek cut the Navy advantage to 30-28 at 17:43. A three-pointer from O'Reilly had Lehigh within one at 32-31 two minutes later, but another Condie trey ignited a 5-0 Mids run to put Navy up 38-31 with 13:03 to play.
The teams traded baskets over the next six minutes, but Navy still held onto a seven-point lead at 42-35 with 8:38 on the clock. Martins scored the next four points of the game before Mann tacked on five to string together a 9-0 Lehigh run as the Mountain Hawks held Navy scoreless for over seven minutes to take a 44-42 lead with the clock down to under two minutes.
Navy's Fenske hit a three-pointer with 1:30 on the clock to break the Mids' seven-plus minute scoring drought and put Navy up 45-44. The teams each missed on their next possession as Lehigh took the ball and called a timeout with 30.7 seconds to play. A Mann three spun around the rim but wouldn't fall before Lehigh fouled three times within the next three seconds, the last of which was a flagrant foul, to send the Mids to the line where Fenske missed her first attempt. Navy regained possession because of the fragrant foul and sent Fenske to the line again where she hit both attempts to put the Mids up 47-44 with 12.2 seconds to play. Lehigh got the last chance, but a trey from Kinek bounced off the rim and Navy picked up the 47-44 victory.
The Mountain Hawks return home Sunday to host archrival Lafayette at 1 p.m. on American Sports Network. Audio coverage will be available on 91.3 WLVR and wlvr.org.
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Team Stats
LEHIGH
NAVY
FG%
.310
.277
3FG%
.250
.438
FT%
.500
.667
RB
44
48
TO
13
11
STL
7
7
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
13
FGM
5
3FGM
0
FTM
3
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
1
FTM
0
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
1
FTM
0
Pts
8
FGM
3
3FGM
2
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
G
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