Johnson Leads Quartet of Double Digit Scorers for @OspreyWBB

Saturday, February 20

Jacksonville, Fla.

2:00 p.m.

University of North Florida

-621, 210 ASun

USC Upstate

-189, 93 ASun

USC Upstate

North Florida

Photo by: Morgan Purvis

Johnson Leads Quartet of Double Digit Scorers for @OspreyWBB

2/20/2016 4:34:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

JACKSONVILLE - Senior Kadesia Johnson led a quartet of double-figure scorers, but it was not enough as USC Upstate defeated North Florida women's basketball, 75-61 on Saturday afternoon at UNF Arena.

With two regular season games left in Johnson's career, the Kissimmee, Fla. native came out to battle. She scored a career-high 18 points with seven rebounds, two assists and a steal in 37 minutes of play. All but two of her points came in the second half as she shot 66 percent in the final 20 minutes. Junior Claire Ioannidis had 15 points, with nine coming from long range. Sophomore Sierra Shepherd tallied 13 points, while freshman Hadley Kiefer scored 10 points for her seventh double-digit performance.

"Offensively, I thought we did some good things and we gave ourselves a chance to get back in it late in the fourth quarter, but obviously the hole we dug ourselves was just too big," added Gibbs. "We had some good performances - [Kadesia] had a career-high on senior night was awesome and pleased and happy with her performance. I thought we battled overall, but right now that is not necessarily good enough. We got to execute and force them to be uncomfortable and we didn't do a great job of that."

Shepherd had a team-best five helpers and grabbed five boards en route to UNF holding a 36-27 edge off the glass. The Ospreys recorded 15 offensive rebounds that led to 20 points. Maiya Rumph and Karrah Johnson joined Kadesia Johnson with seven rebounds each.

It was a slow second half that doomed the home team who had hung around with the 18-9 Spartans for the opening 10 minutes. UNF dropped behind by as many as six in the first three minutes of the game, but responded with 10-2 run to lead 14-10 on back-to-back triples from Ioannidis with 2:35 left in the opening quarter. USC Upstate was not ready to back down as it went on a 6-0 run to take a 16-14 lead after one.

The second half saw the Ospreys give up seven turnovers, leading to nine points for the Spartans and make the difference in the second quarter. It took UNF almost three minutes to score its first basket of the frame and then a 12-4 run pushed the lead to 14 where USC Upstate kept it going into the half, 37-23. The visitors held UNF to just three field goals, while shooting 8-for-15 from the floor.

For the next two quarters, UNF played catch up the remainder of the way as the Spartans led by as many as 21 in the early part of the fourth quarter. The Ospreys had a 16-5 run that lasted more than five minutes to close within 10, 66-56 with 2:42, to play, but that was as close as the home team would get.

"It comes down to one quarter of basketball which is the second quarter and we lost 21-9," said head coach Darrick Gibbs. "They did a good job generating scoring opportunities. We didn't make it very tough for them defensively. For the game they shot 49 percent from the field and scored 75 points and that is going to be tough to beat anybody."

Another difference in the game was the Spartans' 18 makes from the charity stripe which were the second highest against UNF this season. In that total were seven successful attempts from Brittany Clency who finished with 15 points, while Brittany Starling hit 6-for-7 and finished with 18 points. Raven Jefferson and Kristen Dickerson also had double-figure days with Dickerson scoring a game-high 19 points.

North Florida closes out its regular season home schedule against NJIT on Monday at 7 p.m. The Ospreys defeated the Highlanders, 68-51, in the first meeting between the two teams. NJIT is coming off a 68-37 loss at Jacksonville.