Solid Team Effort Propels Lehigh Past Loyola 86-69

Wednesday, February 1

Stabler Arena

7 p.m.

Lehigh University

7-14, 2-8PL

Loyola

9-12, 5-5PL

Team	1	2	3	4	F
LOYOLA	10	20	18	21	69
Lehigh	17	29	11	29	86

Solid Team Effort Propels Lehigh Past Loyola 86-69

2/1/2017 10:56:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh women's basketball team pulled away from Loyola late for a strong 86-69 win on Wednesday night at Stabler Arena. Junior Quinci Mann led the way for Lehigh with a career-high 26 points and was a perfect 16-for-16 from the free throw line, setting a new school record for the most made free throws in a game, surpassing the previous record of 13 held by Alexa Williams (2009) and Kelly Madden (1995). Junior Bernadette Devaney scored 13 points to tie her career-high and was 2-of-4 from the field and 7-of-10 from the line. Sophomore Hailey Pascoe scored 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting, tying a career-high with four three-pointers. Freshman Hannah Hedstrom dished out seven assists and pulled down a career-high seven rebounds, and Camryn Buhr had nine points, four rebounds and a career-high three assists. Junior Mae Williams collected two steals and tied her career-best with seven rebounds, and freshman Cameryn Benz added seven points and six rebounds.

The win is Lehigh's second in the last three games and moves them to 7-14 (2-8 Patriot) on the season, while Loyola falls to 9-12 (5-5 Patriot).

Lehigh outshot Loyola 38.6-35.7 percent on the evening, and also held a 46-40 advantage on the boards. The Mountain Hawks shot 44.4 percent from three-point range and were 34-for-40 from the free throw line.

"All around it was just an important team win and hopefully a win that gave us some confidence," said head coach Sue Troyan. "I thought Cam Buhr was really good on the defensive end and Hannah (Hedstrom) played a good floor game and defensive game."

(2/1/2017) Women's Basketball vs Loyola

After both teams came up empty on their first several possessions to start the game, Gena Grundhoffer hit a pair of free throws, and Pascoe hit her first three shots of the game, including a pair of three-pointers, to give the Mountain Hawks a 10-2 lead going into the first media timeout. Following the break, Benz grabbed an offensive rebound and put in a layup while getting fouled. She completed the old-fashioned three-point play to put the Mountain Hawks up 13-4 at the 3:01 mark. Buhr followed with two free throws and a pull-up jumper with just under a minute to go in the quarter, before Loyola closed the quarter with four quick points to cut the Lehigh edge to 17-10 after one.

Lehigh kept the pedal down in the second, upping the lead to 14 points by the midway point following a Benz layup. Another Benz basket got the lead to 17 (38-21) for the first time and two free throws by Mann in the final minute brought the lead to 46-28. Lehigh carried a 46-30 lead into the break, matching their season-high for points in the first half. The Mountain Hawks shot 52.9 in the second quarter, with Mann scoring all 17 of her first half points in the frame.

Lehigh got the advantage back to 18 early in the third thanks to buckets from Grundhoffer and Williams. After a triple from Devaney gave Lehigh a 55-39 lead, Loyola closed the gap with a 9-2 run over the final 2:59 to bring the Lehigh edge down to 57-48 entering the fourth quarter.

Loyola continued their run, scoring the first six points of the final frame, using the 15-2 run to get within 57-54 with 6:37 remaining. Buhr ended the drought with a layup and free throw before back-to-back threes from Pascoe and Devaney upped the lead back to 12 once more at 66-54.

"They made that run at us and got it down to three with about five minutes to go and I thought our kids did a great job of responding to that," Troyan said. "That's been a bit of our Achilles' heel, not finishing games, and that might have been one of the biggest areas of improvement for us. Instead of getting down about it, they went on and made the next play. We've talked about making next plays and they did a good job coming back and finishing."

After a Greyhound three-pointer with exactly four minutes left made it 66-57, the parade to the foul line began as Lehigh was able to put the game away, going 21-for-25 from the free throw line, with 24 of those attempts coming over the final 3:38. Loyola committed 17 of their 28 personal fouls in the fourth quarter, helping Lehigh put together their second 29-point quarter of the game on just three made field goals.

After Bri Betz-White made it a 73-66 game with 1:42 on the clock, Devaney hit four free throws, Mann added six and Kayla Burton iced it away with two in the closing seconds to cap the Lehigh scoring.

"She (Mann) did a great job of letting the game come to her tonight," Troyan said. "In the first half she had some big buckets; some big scoring opportunities for us and hit some big shots that opened up the lead. In the second half, she did a really good job of executing. Hannah (Hedstrom) did a really good job in our press offense of getting the ball into people's hands that we wanted to get to the foul line, and Quinci did a great job knocking them down at the end."

Lehigh will have a Saturday home game for the first time since November this weekend when they host American for a 2 p.m. matinee. All the action will be streamed live on PatriotLeague.TV and Lehighsports.com/watch.

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