Lady Cats 34-32 at half vs Hens

[UncleBill57]

Coyer 6-9 for 16 points, 2reb, 1A, 2stl at half. Leer 2-3 for 5. Starters totaled 13 for half. Sweeney had 2 fouls at half, scored 2. Hole man 2-3, pts,
4 reb,1stl, 1blk, 1 Pf. Roberts 2-3, 4pts, 1 reb, 2 PF, 1 to. Carey 1-4, opts, 2reb, 1pf,1to. That's our scoring. 5% left on battery.

E Donna 10 pts, 6reb, 1A, 1 stl

 

[UncleBill57]

Cats Shooting off in second half. Delaware wins 59-45.

 

[tpenter]

Bill - too bad we couldn't have ended there since Nova's offense did after leading 34-32 at the half.

In a pretty exciting first half led by the red-hot Caroline Coyer (16 points) and a pretty good defensive effort to keep Della Donne in check, things looked pretty good for a real barn-burner to the final buzzer. That all ended with the whistle to start the second half. Delaware opened up with an 11-0 "run" over the first 7 minutes before Nova finanlly scored to make the score 43-36, but then Nova did not make their second basket until another 7 minutes went by, with a 14-2 Delaware run putting the game out of reach at 57-38. Nova only managed one more basket in the game, totalling only 11 points after the half. Total domination by the Delaware defense. The final was 59-45, with the score not really indicative of how thoroughly we were outplayed in the second half.

DellaDonne was fronted, double and triple teamed and was not much of a scoring factor while the game was in reach for Nova, but Delaware wound up with a lot of open shots that finally started falling for them. After numerous trips up court came up empty for the Wildcats, the Hens steadily pulled away. DellaDonne put the final touch on the second half rout with a pull up three pointer on a break with about six minutes left and then took a seat on the bench. EDD finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds, joining three other Hens in double figure scoring. Nova was led by Coyer's 18 (only two foul shots after the break). Delaware narrowly won the board battle 41-38 with Megan Pearson pulling in 7 rebounds and Taylor Holman and Kavauna Edwards getting 6 each.

Duquesne dispatched Dartmouth in the second game, meaning that Nova will play the 1-10 host Dartmouth team on Sunday evening for the consolation game. The girls should be able to rebound against the weak Big Green and come home for the New Year with a 10-2 record and 1 non-conference game against Penn remaining (after a few Big East games are played).

Highlights - Coyer taking over the game at the end of the first half, a deep bomb from the corner by Leer to cap the first half Nova scoring, a decent job by Holman on DellaDonne and Edwards finally showing some of her potential in probably her most minutes of the season.

Lowlights - the whistle to open the second half, getting only three baskets in 20 minutes of "action". The offense being totally shut out from the get-go, with the perimeter game closed off at any attempt to rotate the ball or get the ball inside. The reality that this team has a lot to overcome in order to be more than a middle of the road Big East team that might be necessary to garner an NCAA bid this year. An 8-8 Big East recond might not cut it.