Offense Struggles as Lehigh Falls to Villanova

Friday, November 17

Allentown, Pa.

5 p.m.

Lehigh University

1-2

Villanova

2-0

Lehigh

Villanova

Photo by: Ricky Bassman

Offense Struggles as Lehigh Falls to Villanova

11/17/2017 9:01:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – On a night where both team struggled offensively, the Villanova women's basketball team prevailed for a 62-42 win over Lehigh on Friday night at PPL Center in Allentown. Sophomore Cameryn Benz led the Brown and White with a career-high 14 points and seven rebounds, sophomore Camryn Buhr tallied eight points and six rebounds, and senior Mae Williams and sophomore Gena Grundhoffer each collected seven rebounds. Sophomore Hannah Hedstrom added four points, six rebounds and three assists, and Paige Galiani added five points on 2-of-2 shooting.

For the game, Lehigh shot 23 percent from the floor (14-for-61) and 22.2 percent (4-for-18) from three-point range. Villanova shot 31.9 percent overall (22-for-69) and just 18.9 percent (7-for-37) from downtown. Both teams pulled down 48 rebounds, while Nova held a 28-18 edge in the paint, and also turned the ball over only seven times to Lehigh's 14. With the loss, Lehigh drops to 1-2 on the season and Villanova improves to 2-0.

"We just could not find the bottom of the basket," said head coach Sue Troyan. "Neither team shot particularly well. Honestly, I thought it was one of our worst shooting performances in a long time. It's going to be hard to win games when three of our top scorers are a combined 3-for-30 at one point. For us to be successful they're going to have to be better than that."

Both teams started 0-for-5 before Adrianna Hahn hit a three-pointer for Nova at the 6:17 mark to break the stalemate. Lehigh got on the board shortly after on a pair of Hedstrom free throws and Benz ended Lehigh's 0-for-7 stretch to start the game with a triple at the 4:08 mark as Nova led 9-5 at the media timeout.

Benz added a pair of free throws at the 1:41 mark to get Lehigh within 12-7, but that would be it as Lehigh shot just 1-for-13 in the opening frame and trailed 14-7 going into the break.

Nova hit two baskets in the first 2:26 of the second to take an 18-7 lead, forcing a Lehigh timeout. Grundhoffer hit a jumper coming out of the timeout at 7:09 and Benz followed with a three-pointer to get Lehigh within six at 18-12, but LU shot just 3-for-12 in the quarter and was at 4-for-25 in the first half as Nova took a 30-16 lead into halftime. The Wildcats shot 35.3 percent (12-for-34) in the first half and just 3-for-20 from three-point range.

"In the first quarter, I thought we played pretty good defense and got good looks at the basket, but the shots were not falling," Troyan said. "I thought the third quarter probably caught up to us from a confidence standpoint and I thought we let up on the defensive end. We came out in the second half and could not get a bucket, they began to get some momentum, and that affected our defensive intensity."

Grundhoffer opened the third quarter with a bucket underneath, but Nova scored the next 10 points to go up 20-18, forcing a LU timeout with 6:32 remaining. Lehigh would then go 3:29 without a basket until Meagan Eripret put in layup to make it 46-20. Benz would add a jumper, and then answer a Villanova basket with another layup before Eripret sank a free throw and Hedstrom put in a layup with three seconds left to make it a 48-27 game after three quarters.

The Mountain Hawks outscored Nova 15-14 in the fourth quarter and scored the first four points off a Mann free throw and a triple by Clougherty. After six straight Villanova points put them back up 54-31, Buhr got two free throws, Benz answered a Nova basket with a layup, and Galiani followed with five straight Lehigh points, including a three-pointer and a long jumper. Buhr tacked on a layup in the final minute to move Lehigh over the 40-point threshold.

"Paige is a great shooter," Troyan said. "She may be the best shooter we have in our program and she's working hard on the defensive end to get better in that regard. I have the utmost confidence in her that when she goes in the game, the ball will go in. It's just a matter of can do the other things as well."

Lehigh will conclude its four game road trip to begin the season, tied for the longest in program history, on Monday night at Cornell. Live coverage will be available on the Ivy League Digital Network and Lehighsports.com/watch.

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