Women's Basketball Drops Decision to Army in Non-Conference Action

Courtesy: UAlbany Sports Information

West Point, N.Y. – Erin Anthony scored a game-high 17 points while Megan Evans finished with a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead Army to a 69-54 win over UAlbany in non-conference women’s basketball action on Wednesday evening.

The teams played evenly through the opening minutes of the first half, with a layup by UAlbany’s Amira Ford tying the score at 14-14 with 11:15 on the clock. Army would then embark on a 14-0 run over the next five minutes, kicked off by two free throws and a three pointer by Alex Maguire.

Junior guard Charity Iromuanya stopped the run for the Great Danes, hitting a jump shot at 6:08 to set the score at 30-16. Iromuanya would cut the lead to 34-21 at 4:18, but the Black Knights would go on a 5-1 run to get up by 18, 40-22, with 2:31 to play in the stanza. Janea Aiken took an assist from Britney McGee to the hoop and McGee would drop in one free throw with just under a minute left to set the score at 40-25 heading into the locker room.

Army (3-4) would score the first basket of the second half, but UAlbany scored 14 unanswered points to pull within three, 42-39, with 15:16 on the clock, on a three pointer by Aiken. Tiffanie Johnson, who posted her first career double-double for UAlbany with 10 points and 10 rebounds, scored three points and recorded one steal and one assist in that run. Army regained composure and hit four straight attempts from the floor to pull ahead, 51-39, with just over 12 minutes left to play.

The Great Danes would pull within single digits with 6:02 remaining on an Iromuanya shot from beyond the three point arc, cutting the lead to 59-51. The Black Knights dropped six straight points before McGee hit her third trey of the evening to get within 67-54 with just under three minutes to play. Evans would score the final points of the game from the free throw line to set the final margin.

"We knew we had to get stops and come right back,” said Iromuanya. “I think (during the 14-0 run) we were finally getting stops and started playing with a lot of energy."

UAlbany (1-7) received 14 points from both McGee and Iromuanya, despite being held to 33.3 percent shooting from the floor as a team. McGee added five assists while Iromuanya recorded three helpers and five rebounds. The Black Knights had four players in double-figures scoring, led by Anthony and Evans, while Nalini Hawkins added 14 points and McGuire netted 11. Army outrebounded the Great Danes by a 43-25 margin and shot 56.6 percent (30-52) from the floor as a team.

"I thought that once again, we are not playing 40 minutes of basketball,” said head coach Trina Patterson, whose team will return home to play New Jersey Tech on Tuesday, Dec. 9. “Early in the second half, we came out with lots of intensity. This is not a 70-point team that we just played. This was a 56-point team, but we let them loose. It was not so much what they did to us. It was what we did to ourselves."