Saturday, November 19
Stabler Arena
7 p.m.
Lehigh University
3-1
68
vs
62
Sacred Heart
1-2
1
2
3
4
F
Sacred Heart
9
10
20
23
62
Lehigh
15
17
17
19
68
Strong Team Effort Leads Lehigh Past Sacred Heart 68-62
11/19/2016 10:25:00 PM | Women's Basketball
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh women's basketball team grabbed its second win in a row on Saturday night with a 68-62 win over Sacred Heart at Stabler Arena. Freshman Gena Grundhoffer picked up her first career double-double with career highs of 19 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman Cameryn Benz also scored in double figures with 10 points and seven rebounds while shooting 4-of-9 from the field. Junior Quinci Mann added nine points and three steals, senior Kiernan McCloskey had eight points and seven rebounds on 3-of-5 shooting, and junior Bernadette Devaney added seven points. Grundhoffer, Hannah Hedstrom and Devaney added three assists apiece, while the team collected a season-high 11 steals. Sacred Heart's Katherine Haines had a game-high 20 points in the losing effort to go along with her eight rebounds. The victory moves Lehigh to 3-1 on the season, while Sacred Heart drops to 1-2.
"It was another game that was a really strong team win," head coach Sue Troyan said afterwards. "A lot of different kids stepped up in different areas and gave us strong performances. I thought Gena Grundhoffer played really well on the offensive end. She scored the ball, and was really aggressive around the basket."
The Pioneers jumped out to a 9-6 lead over the first four minutes of the game. With just over a minute to go in the opening quarter, McCloskey put the Mountain Hawks ahead 10-9 with a fast break layup off an assist from Devaney, who followed that up on the next Lehigh possession with a three pointer to bring the lead to 13-9. Grundhoffer capped the first quarter scoring with a pair of free throws to take Lehigh into the break on top 15-9.
After the Pioneers tied the game at 17-17 early in the second quarter, Lehigh answered the call with a 13-0 run over the next six minutes to take the lead for good. Three straight points from Grundhoffer, followed by a Mann basket and the first career points for Meagan Eripret made it 24-17 with 4:31 left in the half. Devaney then contributed two jumpers, sandwiched around a layup from Burton to give Lehigh the 30-17 advantage with under a minute remaining in the half. The lead remained at 13 points going into the locker room at 32-19.
Lehigh shot 38.9 percent through the first 20 minutes, including an 8-for-17 clip (47.1 percent) in the second quarter, while holding Sacred Heart to just 23.3 percent (7-for-30) for the half.
Sacred Heart ran off the first six points of the third quarter, including two fast break layups to force a Lehigh timeout at the 8:19 mark. Grundhoffer answered with six straight points, and Mann answered a Pioneer bucket with a layup of her own to get the lead back to 13 points at 40-27. The Pioneers cut the deficit to nine points, but Kayla Burton drained a triple for three of her five points to get the Lehigh lead back to 12. The teams traded points for the remaining five minutes to carry a 10-point lead into the final quarter.
Sacred Heart kept the pressure on over the final 10 minutes, getting within six points at the nine minute mark after a three-pointer by Erin Storck. Lehigh pushed the lead back to 13 at the 6:42 mark thanks to a fast break bucket by Mann and a layup front Cameryn Buhr with 6:42 left to make it 58-45. A free throw from Grundhoffer with 3:49 to go and a layup from Buhr with exactly three minutes remaining both gave Lehigh its largest edge of the night at 14 points. The Pioneers scored 11 of the game's final 14 points over the final three minutes, helped by a trio of three pointers. But free throws from Mann and McCloskey and a blocked three-point attempt by Hailey Pascoe helped seal the Brown and White's second straight win.
"I thought Cameryn Benz played really well again for us, and Hailey Pascoe gave us good minutes," Troyan said. "Bernadette Devaney was also really strong. I think that's a good sign from a maturity standpoint for our team."
The Mountain Hawks won the battle on the glass as well, outrebounding SHU 52-39, including a 19-11 edge on the offensive end.
"I thought that was the best job we've done all year in terms of a rebounding perspective," Troyan said.
"Rebounding and defense was probably the difference in the game. I thought our kids did a really good job of executing our zone defense. We got a lot of tips, deflections and steals out of that. We did a good job of mixing up the zone and man to man defenses."
Lehigh returns to action on Tuesday afternoon in a 4 p.m. showdown at Mount Saint Mary's.
Team Stats
SHU
LEHIGH
FG%
.352
.377
3FG%
.273
.200
FT%
.750
.619
RB
39
52
TO
18
18
STL
4
11
Game Leaders
Pts
19
FGM
6
3FGM
1
FTM
6
Pts
10
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
2
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
1
Pts
8
FGM
3
3FGM
0
FTM
2
Players Mentioned
F
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's BasketballF
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's BasketballG
/ Women's BasketballG/F
/ Women's Basketball
G
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