Horizon League Women’s Basketball Scoreboard (Jan. 24)
Detroit 76, Loyola 66
Valparaiso 84, Milwaukee 72
Wright State 59, UIC 51
Youngstown State 72, Cleveland State 63
Detroit 76, Loyola 66
The Detroit women's basketball team raised its 2012 WNIT banner prior to the start of the game, and then put the contest away with a late run as the Titans were able to extend their home court winning streak to 11 straight by holding off their Jesuit-rival Loyola, 76-66, on Thursday night in Calihan Hall.
Sophomore Shareta Brown led the way with a game-high 26 points and 17 rebounds, despite being limited in the second half due to foul trouble. She was 10-of-21 from the field and also came away with a team-high three steals. She will enter Saturday's game just three points shy of 1,000 for her career.
Senior Demeisha Fambro had 16 points, five rebounds, and four assists, which included a big three late in the game, while freshman Rosanna Reynolds netted 13, hitting a season-high three 3-pointers and handing out four helpers.
The game was tied at 60-60 with 7:23 left when Detroit (9-7, 2-2 HL) took the lead for good on the strength of an 8-0 run over the next three minutes. Junior Senee Shearer got that started with a triple and that was followed by Brown getting an inside bucket and a three from Fambro. Meanwhile, the Titan defense forced Loyola (6-11, 1-3 HL) into missing five-straight shots with a pair of turnovers.
UDM saw that lead trimmed to four, but that was as close as the Ramblers came as Fambro and Reynolds both calmly hit a pair of free throws in the final minute to ice the game away.
Detroit had a nine-point lead coming out of the half, but a 12-4 run by Loyola to start the second period had the visiting Ramblers behind by just one, 45-44, five minutes into the stanza. Senior Yar Shayok hit a jumper right after that to push it to three, but Loyola would tie it at 47-all with 13:59 left.
The Titans responded with five quick points as Fambro had a bucket and Reynolds connected on a trey, but Loyola then scored seven-straight to take its first lead of the game, 54-52, with 9:48 remaining. Back-to-back 3-pointers by junior Megan Hatter and freshman Destiny Lavita-Stephens had the red, white and blue once again out in front, 58-54, but the Ramblers came back to knot the contest at 60-all.
Shearer finished the game with nine points and Hatter added seven points and five rebounds.
UDM outrebounded Loyola, 44-35, and shot 45.2% from the field connecting on 28-of-62 with nine coming from behind the arc.
Both teams got off to a fast start offensively as Detroit hit five of its first seven shots, while Loyola was 5-of-8. Trailing by one, 9-8, UDM took the lead, 22-13, by going on a 14-4 run.
Loyola would cut that to four, 22-18, but back-to-back layups by Brown – who had 19 points in the first half - pushed the margin to eight, 26-18.
Detroit would then fend off a Rambler run that cut the Titan advantage to three, 33-30, but Brown then had five-straight points and Reynolds ended the first-half scoring with a trey to give UDM a nine point lead at the half, 41-32.
Valparaiso 84, Milwaukee 72
Behind 51 percent shooting from the field and career-highs from junior Tabitha Gerardot and sophomore Shaquira Scott, the Crusader women’s basketball team came away with an 84-72 win at Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Gerardot tallied 33 points on 12-of-17 shooting, and Scott totaled 22 points. Gerardot also pulled down 10 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the season.
As a team, the Crusaders shot 29-of-57 from the field and were 22-of-26 at the free throw line.
Leading 31-26 with 5:18 to go in the first half, the Crusaders embarked on a 25-3 run to lead 56-29 with just under 17 minutes left in the game.
Scott opened the run with a pair of free throws, and Gerardot followed up with a three-point play. Junior Charae Richardson had a 3-pointer and two free throws on the next two Valparaiso possessions.
Gerardot and sophomore Maegan Callaway closed out the first half scoring for the Crusaders. Gerardot had a basket and two free throws, while Callaway added a layup. The Crusaders led 47-29 at the half and were 14-of-31 (45 percent) from the field.
Richardson started the second half in the same vein with a three-point play. Senior Gina Lange followed with a basket, and then Gerardot and Scott each added baskets.
The Panthers responded with a 16-4 run and later trimmed the Valparaiso lead down to 11, but they would get no closer than that the rest of the way.
Richardson finished with 14 points, as the trio of Gerardot, Scott and Richardson combined for 69 points.
Ashley Green led the Panthers (5-11, 1-3 HL) with 22 points. Sami Tucker added 16, and Angela Rodriguez had 15. The Panthers were 23-of-66 from the field.
Wright State 59, UIC 51
Head coach Mike Bradbury picked up his 100th career win and 50th at WSU Thursday night as the Wright State women's basketball team pulled away late for a 59-51 Horizon League victory at WSU's Nutter Center.
The two teams were tied five times in the first half, the final being at 16 following a Katie Hannemann layup with 4:48 remaining. From there, though, Ivory James took over for the Raiders as she scored six straight points and tallied all 13 of Wright State's points the rest of the period to make it 29-24 at the break.
Both teams struggled from the field in the opening 20 minutes as UIC shot 33 percent while WSU was at 31 percent.
Wright State led by six early in the second half and by four at 46-42 with 8:13 to play, only to see the Flames answer with five unanswered points to go up one with 5:35 remaining.
Two Breanna Stucke foul shots at the 4:18 mark, though, gave the Raiders the lead for good and after the sophomore forward connected on a three, Tayler Stanton capped off the 7-0 burst with two foul shots to make it 53-47 with 2:33 left.
UIC would get no closer than four the rest of the way as WSU hit six foul shots down the stretch to seal the victory.
The win was the 100th in the six-year head coaching career of Bradbury (100-79) and the 50th in his third season at Wright State (50-35).
Wright State hit just seven of 28 shots in the second half to finish at 28 percent overall while UIC shot 29 percent the final 20 minutes to end up at 31 percent. The Raiders, though, were 23 of 40 at the foul line, 14 of 27 in the second half, compared to just seven of 12 for the game for the Flames.
James led all scorers with 19 off the bench for WSU, 15 in the first half, while Stucke posted her second career double-double of 11 points and a career-tying 11 rebounds. Kim Demmings had a near double-double of 10 points and nine boards while Stanton had six points and 12 rebounds and KC Elkins six points, a career-high 11 rebounds and five assists.
Rachel Story paced UIC (6-11, 2-2 Horizon) with 14 points while Hannemann had a near double-double of 11 points and nine rebounds.
Youngstown State 72, Cleveland State 63
Brandi Brown and Heidi Schlegel combined for 46 points, and the Youngstown State women's basketball team beat Cleveland State 72-63 for a big Horizon League road victory on Thursday at the Wolstein Center.
Brown matched her season high with 28 points and added 17 rebounds, and Schlegel had a season-best 18 points and eight rebounds.
The Penguins scored 11 of the first 12 points of the game and led from start to finish. Cleveland State cut the margin to two with less than seven minutes left, but YSU scored the next seven points and led by at least five the rest of the way. It was the Penguins' first win at the Wolstein Center since Feb. 13, 2006.
YSU is now 12-5 overall and 2-2 in Horizon League play while Cleveland State drops to 10-8 overall and 2-3 against the league.
Youngstown State held Shalonda Winton to 14 points, six below her season average coming in. The senior forward, who was averaging 22 points, was limited to four points in the second half. The Penguins also forced Cleveland State into 20 turnovers and matched their season high with 38 points in the paint.
After the Penguins' seven-point run that put them up 65-56, Cleveland State scored the next four points and had YSU down to two seconds on the shot clock. YSU called timeout, and Brown scored her 28th point on an isolation play to put the Penguins up 67-60 with 2:20 left. YSU split its final 10 free throw attempts to keep Cleveland State from gaining.
Brown was 11-for-26 from the field and 5-for-6 from the charity stripe. Her free-throw attempt with 5:06 left in the contest gave her a school record 546 attempts. Schlegel was an efficient 5-for-8 from the field and 7-of-9 from the free-throw line.
Cori Coleman led Cleveland State with 16 points, and Kiersten Green joined Winton with 14 points.
Cleveland State narrowly outshot the Penguins 44.2 percent to 42.1 percent, but YSU made one more field goal and six more free throws. YSU held scoring edges of 38-30 in the paint, 16-9 off turnovers, 17-7 on second-chance points and 24-9 in bench points.
Youngstown State scored 11 of the first 12 points in the contest and led by as many as 15 in the first half, but Cleveland State got the margin down to eight at halftime as it held the Penguins to four points in the final 5:27.
YSU scored four points in the first 20 seconds and the first six points of the game, and the Guins led 11-1 on a Brown bucket with 17:05 left. A Schlegel 3-pointer gave the Penguins a 29-14 lead with just over six minutes left, but Cleveland State was able to chip away at the lead with Winton on the bench with two fouls. Winton and Schlegel traded two free throws to make the score 31-16 at the 5:27 mark, and the Vikings closed out the half on an 11-4 run.
Brown nearly had a double-double in the first half with 11 points and eight rebounds, and Schlegel had nine points at the break. Winton had 10 points, and Coleman and Green had seven apiece for Cleveland State.
