Lady Ospreys fall to Lady Owls

Thursday, January 8

Jacksonville, Fla.

7 p.m.

University of North Florida

Kennesaw State University

Freshman Brittany Kirland tied her career high with 15 points

1/8/2009 10:02:00 PM | Women's Basketball

UNF shot .500 percent in the first half and .217 percent in the second half

By: Adam Jonson, UNF Athletics

Box Score

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The University of North Florida women's basketball team sprinted to an 18-9 lead to start its first home game in more than three weeks, but offensive struggles in the second half opened the door for Kennesaw State to leave UNF Arena with a 60-50 win Thursday night in Atlantic Sun Conference action.

"The team showed a lot of energy, emotion, confidence and swagger in the first half," UNF head coach Mary Tappmeyer said. "But I don't think we played the same way in the second half. We missed a couple of shots early and really didn't have the same swagger we had early in the game."

UNF (2-12, 1-4 A-Sun) connected on half of its attempts from the field in the first half (16-for-32) en route to scoring its highest first-half point total of the season (35), before slumping to .217 percent shooting in the second half.

The final 20 minutes of the contest turned into a defensive struggle with the Lady Ospreys netting only 15 second-half points and Kennesaw State (6-6, 3-1) managing only 21 after the break.

"When our kids commit to the defensive end, we are a very good defensive team," Tappmeyer said. "But I think we lost some of our aggressiveness on the offensive end after we made some stops. We didn't look to push it in transition and be as aggressive as we were in the first half."

The Lady Ospreys built their biggest lead of the game a little more than seven minutes into the contest when they sported an 18-9 edge. The Lady Owls quickly diminished the home team's advantage, cutting the score to 22-20 a little more than four minutes later.

KSU went on an 11-0 run at the 6:28 mark in the first half to turn a UNF seven-point lead into a Lady Owl four-point lead with a little less than three minutes remaining until halftime. After senior Jennifer Bowen drained a 3-pointer with nine seconds left to cut the visitor's lead to one point, KSU's Gia Lockett launched a shot from just inside half court with .4 seconds on the clock that banked in and put the Lady Owls on top 39-35 at the break.

In the second half, the Lady Owls mounted a seven-point lead less than four minutes into the final frame before UNF rallied to slice that lead to a single point two minutes later. KSU responded with a rally of its own, scoring the game's next nine points to boast their biggest lead of the game, 55-45, with nine minutes left to play.

Both defenses tightened down the stretch, allowing only five points apiece over the final nine minutes. Freshman Brittany Kirkland scored four of her career-high-tying 15 points in that stretch (also scored 15 against Wofford). Bowen led all scoring with 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting from the floor and 3-for-3 from the charity stripe.

Britteney Henderson grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds, including six on the offensive glass, to help KSU top the Lady Ospreys, 38-35, in total rebounds. Bowen had a Lady Osprey-best five boards while juniors Arlande Cherizol and Shennette Sheffield and sophomore Juliemay Syquio each added four.

"They just went after it a little bit harder," Tappmeyer said. "They send all five players to the boards and our posts really didn't do a great job of rebounding tonight."

Kennesaw used 14 offensive rebounds to score 16 second-chance points and the Lady Owl bench chipped in 21 points. UNF's bench scored seven and the Lady Ospreys scored only five second-chance points

Joining Bowen as the game's leading scorer, Greteya Kelley contributed 16 points for the Lady Owls while teammate Gia Lockett notched 13. Henderson finished with 12 points.

"I think we have made progress and I think we need to keep looking at the positive," Tappmeyer said. "We are not getting the results we want yet, but the work this team has committed to is shining through and it showed in the first half. We are going to get back to work, learn how to keep the emotional level high for 40 minutes and win games."

UNF's will look to end its nine-game skid on Saturday, when Mercer visits UNF Arena for another A-Sun matchup at 2 p.m.