The New York University women's basketball team, ranked #7 by the
USA Today and #8 by D3hoops.com, defeated Case Western Reserve University 82-70 in a University Athletic Association (UAA) contest on Sunday afternoon, January 31, at the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center in Manhattan.
The Violets, who are tied for first place in the UAA (6-1), improved to 17-1 overall while the Spartans dropped to 6-12, 1-6.
Megan Dawe was NYU's high scorer, finishing with 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting fromt he field and 5-of-6 from the foul line.
Kaitlyn Read added 18 points, a game-high 10 rebounds and six assists.
"Our team understands that the stronger Megan is playing, the better our outside shooting can be," said NYU Assistant Coach Cassandra Loftus. "It's a very symbiotic relationship with how she plays and how the rest of the team plays."Each team had an early lead in the game. But, with NYU trailing 10-9, Read's three-point play started a 6-0 Violet run and the home team never trailed again.
Leading 17-12 after one quarter, the Violets went ahead by as many as 12 in the second before settling for a 38-31 halftime advantage.
Both teams shot well from the field in the first half, with the Violets posting a 46.9% (15-32) mark while the Spartans were at an even 50% (13-26). However, the biggest advantage was from behind the arc, where the Violets shot 55.6% (5-9) and the Spartans were held to 27.3% (3-11).
NYU increased its lead to a game-high 18 points, 61-43, on
Riley Wurtz's three-pointer with 3:57 left in the third quarter. But, Case Western Reserve went on a spurt and cut its deficit to only eight points, 65-57, heading into the fourth.
The Spartans scored the first bucket of the final quarter to pull within six before the Violets re-opened an 11-point lead.
CWRU again pulled to within six, 75-69, this time with only 3:46 remaining in the game. However,
Amy Harioka hit a three-pointer and Read followed with four consecutive free throws as NYU led by double-digits the rest of the way.
"The wonderful part about the UAA is how competitive it is. Even the teams at the bottom are better than a lot of the top teams in other conferences," Loftus added. "So we can't take anyone lightly, and I think we did a really good job executing offensively today."
HIGHLIGHTS:- Harioka finished with 15 points, scoring them all from three-point range (5-7).
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Maya Wasowicz added 14 points for NYU, hitting 3-of-4 from behind the arc.
- Wurtz finished with a game-high eight assists, while adding six rebounds and a steal.
- NYU shot 58.8% (10-17) from three-point range.
- NYU is now tied with Washington University in St. Louis at the top of the UAA standings.
"The loss to Rochester (NYU's only UAA defeat), as bad as it was, was a good wakeup call for us," Dawe said. "We really learned that the mistakes we were making early on in the season are going to hurt us in the UAA. That has allowed us to work in practice to decrease those mistakes as we move forward."
- Laura Mummey led CWRU with 24 points.
The Violets return to action this Friday, February 5, when they travel to Pittsburgh, PA, for a UAA road contest at Carnegie Mellon University. Tipoff is set for 6:00 pm.
