Women's Basketball: Sanni's 26 Leads WVU
December 10, 2005 08:48 PM | General
December 10, 2005
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HOUSTON – Olayinka Sanni scored a career-high 26 points and Meg Bulger added 24 to lead West Virginia to a 79-54 victory over Houston Saturday night at Houston’s Hofheinz Pavilion.
The duo’s 20-point efforts were the first time since last year’s WNIT game at Kentucky that two WVU players did that when Bulger scored 31 and Sherell Sowho added 21.
West Virginia’s 25-point road win was its largest since posting a 35-point victory (88-53) at Providence on Feb. 4, 2004. West Virginia made 32 of its 57 field-goal attempts for 56.1 percent – the fifth straight game WVU exceeded 50 percent from the floor. The Mountaineers came into the game ranked eighth in the country in field goal percentage shooting 49.1 percent.
Sanni did most of the damage, hitting 11 of 14 from close range for her game-high 26 points. The sophomore center is now shooting 71.7 percent (38 of 53) after tonight’s performance.
The Cougars (2-5) jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but went scoreless for a nine-minute stretch and that allowed West Virginia (4-2) to build a 25-8 lead. Houston’s Ryan Meyers finally broke the scoreless spell for the Cougars with a jumper with 10:16 remaining in the first half.
West Virginia led at halftime, 43-21, primarily by going inside -- out-scoring the smaller Cougars 34-6 in the paint.
The closest Houston could get was down 18 at the start of the second half before West Virginia built its lead to as many as 29 at 69-40.
Yelena Leuchanka added 10 points off the bench for the Mountaineers, now 2-1 in road games this year.
Bulger’s 24 points were the third straight game she’s managed to hit for 20, scoring 71 points in all during the span. Bulger’s 1,043 career points now move her past Brandi Batch (1,040) into 21st place on WVU’s career scoring list. Bulger needs 29 more points to move past Dionne Morris into 20th place with 1,071 career points.
Coach Mike Carey won his 75th career game at WVU on Saturday night, boosting his overall record to 75-53 in four-plus seasons.
Sha ‘Ratta Hawkins led Houston with 24 points.
The Mountaineers are idle this week for finals and will return to the court to face Duquesne in Pittsburgh at the A.J. Palumbo Center on Saturday, Dec. 17. Tip off is 7:05 pm.
