Navy Powers by Lehigh 79-44

Wednesday, February 15

Annapolis, Md.

7 p.m.

Lehigh University

8-17, 3-11PL

Navy

19-6, 12-2PL

Team	1	2	3	4	F
Lehigh	7	9	13	15	44
Navy	10	17	28	24	79

2/15/2017 10:09:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Lehigh women's basketball team suffered a 79-44 defeat at Navy on Wednesday night. The Mountain Hawks were unable to get into a groove on offense shot a season-low 27.1 percent from the field and tied a season-low with just 16 made field goals (16-for-59). Freshman Cameryn Benz tied her career-high and led the team with 12 points and six rebounds, freshman Paige Galiani scored a career-best six points off the bench and freshman Hannah Hedstrom had a team-high seven rebounds. The Mids dominated in the paint, outscoring Lehigh 46-14, and holding an 11-7 edge on second-chance points. Navy also led 21-14 in points off turnovers. The loss drops Lehigh to 8-17 (3-11 PL) while Navy improves to 19-6 (12-2 PL), keeping pace with Bucknell for a first place tie atop the Patriot League standings.

The Midshipmen were led by Laurel Jaunich, who scored 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting, and Hannah Fenske who scored 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting.

"I don't think we played with a lot of toughness, and Navy had their way with us at both ends of the floor," said head coach Sue Troyan. "They kept us from getting any good looks that we wanted on the offensive end and they did whatever they wanted to do on offense."

Navy held an 8-7 edge at the first media timeout at the 2:03 mark. Lehigh got off to a slow 2-for-9 start from the field, with both field goals coming in the form off three-pointers from Benz, the second of which gave Lehigh a 7-4 lead at the 3:42 mark. Navy ran off the final six points of the quarter to take a 10-7 lead in the second. The Mountain Hawks shot just 20 percent of the opening quarter with six turnovers. The Mids were just 5-of-16 (31.3 percent) from the field and committed three turnovers.

After a Navy basket by Jaunich in the opening minute of the second quarter, Quinci Mann got Lehigh within two with a three-pointer. After another Jaunich layup, Hedstrom provided Lehigh with its first two-point field goal of the game at the 7:45 mark to get the Mountain Hawks within 14-12. The Mids then broke out with a quick 9-2 run, highlighted by a pair of fast break layups from Justice Swett and Jaunich to open up a 23-14 lead with 5:12 left until halftime, forcing a Lehigh timeout. Benz added a layup to make it 23-16 with 4:14 to go, which proved to be Lehigh's final points of the half. The Mids also went nearly three minutes without scoring, breaking the scoreless streak with a layup with 15 seconds remaining, making the halftime score 27-16.

Navy was just 1-of-8 from three-point range in the first half. After being whistled for just one foul each in the first quarter, neither team committed a foul in the second quarter.

Navy rattled off the first 10 points of the second half, forcing a Lehigh timeout. Camryn Buhr put in a layup at the 6:35 mark of the third quarter, ending both the 14-0 Navy run and Lehigh's scoring drought at 7:38, to make it 37-18.

After the slow start from three in the first half, Navy caught fire in the third quarter, shooting 68.8 percent overall (11-for-16) in the third quarter and 66.7 percent (6-for-9) from three-point land to build a 55-29 lead through three quarters, outscoring the Mountain Hawks 28-13 in the period.

Grundhoffer opened the Lehigh scoring in the fourth with a three-pointer to make it 57-32. The Mountain Hawks went into prolonged scoring drought before another layup from Grundhoffer made it 63-34. Galiani got the deficit back under 30 once more with her first of two threes on the night, and Meagan Eripret added a layup and two free throws to finish the game with four points.

"We struggled to put the ball in the basket," Troyan said. "We played pretty good defense in the first half to keep us relatively in the game, and then the second half had our struggles on the offensive end and the defensive end. A lot of it from my perspective was effort. I don't think we came out here and played with focus and effort for 40 minutes."

Next up for the Mountain Hawks will be a showdown with rival Lafayette on Senior Day this Saturday. Lehigh will honor its three-member senior class with a ceremony prior to the 2 p.m. tipoff.

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