Women's Basketball Scoreboard (Jan. 23)
Oakland 73, Cleveland State 62
Valparaiso 85, Detroit 44
Wright State 69, Milwaukee 64
Oakland 73, Cleveland State 62
Elena Popkey scored a team-high 17 points and Bethany Watterworth added 15 as the Oakland women's basketball team (8-10, 3-2 HL) used a strong second half to defeat Cleveland State (8-10, 3-2 HL), 73-62, Thursday night at the Wolstein Center. It is the first game this season OU trailed at half and came back to win the game.
"Our team really played hard," said coach Jeff Tungate. "The first 12 minutes of the game we were sloppy. We didn't defend, they had 22 points in the first 12 minutes of the game. We really cranked up our defense. On offense we started to execute in the second half, shooting 52 percent. We competed and got it done on the defensive end. We talked about if we're going to win we have to be a good defensive team. All in all it's a great win, especially on the road against a good team like Cleveland State."
Nola Anderson came off the bench to score 14 points and grabbed five rebounds. Kim Bee added 11 points and grabbed a team-best nine rebounds.
Oakland trailed 32-31 at the half despite falling behind by as many as 12 points in the opening period. OU would go on a 15-6 run in the final 10 minutes to cut the deficit to just one led by six points by Bee and four by Anderson.
Watterworth would score the first five points of the second half as Oakland began the half on a 9-3 run to take a 42-35 lead. OU would not give up the lead for the rest of the contest. The Vikings would cut the lead to one point until the Golden Grizzlies scored nine straight points led by Popkey with four points and capped by an Anderson 3-pointer with 10:40 remaining. Oakland outscored Cleveland State 57-36 over the final 30 minutes of the contest.
The Vikings were led by Imani Gordon with 27 points and 20 rebounds, while Cori Coleman added 15 points. Oakland outrebounded Cleveland State 46-43 as OU improves to 7-3 when winning the rebounding battle.
Valparaiso 85, Detroit 44
The Crusaders clicked on all cylinders Thursday night versus Detroit and were handsomely rewarded to the tune of an 85-44 win at the Athletics-Recreation Center.
Abby Dean, Charae Richardson, Liz Horton, and Jessi Wiedemann all finished in double figures, while Jessica Carr recorded seven steals, the most by a Valpo player since 2003.
"No one came out and tried to do too much. Our defense did a tremendous job stopping their best player. I'm really proud of the way we communicated and that's not something we've been able to sustain for 40 minutes consistently," head coach Tracey Dorow said.
The two teams went back-and-forth for the first five minutes of the contest. Richardson had already tossed in six of her 16 points by the time Detroit's Reyna Montgomery made a layup to cut the Crusader lead to 13-11.
From that point, Valparaiso embarked on an astonishing 35-2 run to close the first half. Just as the Brown and Gold suffered a field goal drought in the second half of their game Tuesday at UIC, the Titans failed to make a shot during the final 14:20 of the first stanza. Aggressive defense by Carr, Dean, and Richardson forced 14 Detroit first half turnovers. As a team, Valpo registered 12 steals by halftime, two more than their season-best ten accrued in 40 minutes against Chicago State on December 6th.
Dean was 6-of-8 from the field, 2-for-3 from downtown as her 18 first-half points helped the Crusaders to a 48-13 lead at the break.
The Titans never drew closer than 32 points in a second half that saw the Brown and Gold spread 37 points amongst eight players. Jazmin Taylor knocked down all four of her free-throw attempts while Sharon Karungi scored nine points and grabbed seven boards off the bench.
Dean tallied 20 points and six steals, both career highs. Horton added 14, while Wiedemann scored 12 points for the second time in three games.
Overall, the Crusader defense forced 25 turnovers, a season watermark. Carr's seven steals were the most by a Valpo player since Katie Boone accomplished the same feat on February 1st, 2003 against UMKC. The junior also notched eight points and four assists on the night.
Detroit's Senee Shearer entered Thursday's game as the Horizon League's leading scorer at 21.1 points per game. The senior was limited to 10 points after fouling out with 4:29 to play.
Wright State 69, Milwaukee 64
Down six early in the second half, a 21-5 run proved to be the difference as the Wright State women's basketball team defeated Milwaukee 69-64 Thursday night at the Klotsche Center.
The Raiders scored the first seven points of the game, only to see the Panthers answer with eight straight of their own. Seven consecutive points, including a Courtney Boyd three, put WSU back up 22-16 with 6:29 remaining in the first half, but Milwaukee again had an answer, outscoring the Raiders 12-5 over the final 4:07 to take a 34-32 halftime advantage.
UWM shot 44 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes while Wright State shot 36 percent.
A pair of Sydney Snower threes early in the second half gave Milwaukee its biggest lead of the night at 40-34 and the margin was four before the Raiders went on the decisive 21-5 run, a burst that saw six different WSU players score, to make it 59-47 with 6:43 to play.
The Panthers cut the deficit to 63-59 on two Angela Rodriguez free throws at the 1:01 mark, but could get no closer as Tay'ler Mingo hit a baseline jumper just ahead of the shot clock on the next possession and later came up with two steals to help preserve the victory.
Milwaukee shot 39 percent, including 36 percent from three, compared to 36 percent shooting for Wright State, who was just four of 21 from behind the arc, but the Raiders had 13 more shot attempts thanks to a 50-46 rebounding edge and forcing 18 turnovers while committing 10.
WSU also went 11 of 17 at the foul line while UWM was eight of 21, five of 15 in the second half.
Kim Demmings led all scorers with 21 points while Mingo added 19. Ivory James had a near double-double of 14 points and nine rebounds while Tayler Stanton collected 14 boards.
Rodriguez had 13 points and nine assists for Milwaukee (5-12, 1-3 Horizon) while Snower also had 13, Ashley Green a double-double of 12 points and 13 rebounds and Avyanna Young 11.
