Demon Blue
January 31, 2006 11:04 PM | General
January 31, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The West Virginia Mountaineers began the game with an 8-0 run and never looked back en route to a surprisingly routine 82-70 victory over the 11th-ranked DePaul Blue Demons (18-4, 5-4) Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
Filling in for the injured Meg Bulger, LaQuita Owens had a night dreams are made of scoring a career-high 20 points on 7 of 12 shooting from the field including a sizzling 6 of 11 from 3-point range.
“We’re very happy to get this win. Coming off an emotional game the other night against St. John’s and with what happened to Meg, I was very proud of how the team responded. If we can get that effort every night, we’ll take it,” said WVU women’s coach Mike Carey.
“LaQuita Owens stepped up and hit some big shots for us with the shot clock winding down,” said Carey.
The Mountaineers shot a red-hot 64 percent in the first half on 16 of 25 shooting to build a 42-28 halftime advantage.
West Virginia also used a scrappy, collapsing defense to hold DePaul All-American Khara Smith to just 6 first half points.
Joining Owens in double digits for the Mountaineers was Chakia Cole with 17, Olayinka Sanni with 13 and Britney Davis-White and Tameka Kelly adding 10 each in the balanced effort.
“We’re going to spread the ball around a lot more and try to get a lot of people involved in our offense,” Carey said.
DePaul cut the WVU's lead to five, 56-51, on a 3-pointer by Rachel Carney at the 12:22 mark of the second half but that was as close as it could get. The Mountaineers used a 7-0 run capped by two Kelly free throws to gain a 63-51 advantage and coast to victory.
WVU never trailed in the game.
For the contest, the Mountaineers shot 54.3 percent on 25 of 46 shooting from the field including 7 of 15 from 3-point range. West Virginia out-rebounded the Blue Demons 37 to 27.
Khara Smith led DePaul with 20 points on 9-13 shooting in the losing effort.
Despite All-American guard Meg Bulger’s absence on the court, the Pittsburgh, Pa., native found other ways to contribute to the team.
“She did nothing but cheer at the end of that bench. She was as happy as anybody on this basketball team and I think that says a lot about her as a young lady,” Carey said.
With the win, WVU improves to 12-7 overall and 4-4 in the Big East Conference.
West Virginia is now 23-13 at home against teams from the Big East under Mike Carey. The historic win marks the Mountaineers’ first victory over a ranked opponent since upsetting 23rd ranked Villanova in the quarterfinals of the 2003-2004 Big East tournament.
DePaul is the highest ranked team WVU has defeated since a 1992 victory over 8th-ranked George Washington in Morgantown.
