Mountaineers Drop Close Contest
December 17, 2011 06:43 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. – The West Virginia women’s basketball team dropped a close game to Duquesne, 61-55, on Saturday afternoon at the A.J. Palumbo Center in Pittsburgh.
“Suzie (McConnell-Serio) does a great job,” said coach Carey. “They’re well coached and she does a great job. Give them a lot of credit. They never quit and kept battling.”
On Friday, Carey stated that it would be important for his team to hold Duquesne to less than its average of 80 points if they were going to have a chance to defeat the Dukes (9-1). While the Mountaineers (7-3) were able to do that, they weren’t able to post a strong enough offensive performance to come away with the win.
West Virginia opened the second half with a 9-3 scoring run that started with sophomore Taylor Palmer sinking a three at the 19:39 mark and culminated with a layup from junior Ayana Dunning with 14:33 left in regulation to give the Mountaineers a 17-point lead.
But Duquesne would not give up, effectively changing its defensive scheme to rattle West Virginia’s offense. Immediately after Dunning’s layup, a foul on junior Ahjah Hall allowed the Dukes to start a comeback with two free points from the charity stripe.
“They did a simple 2-2-1 and our guards just panicked and started turning the ball over and they started scoring,” said Carey. “They got the momentum and we just never could recover. We worked on that for about two months. I’m very frustrated. I kept putting guards in and explaining what we needed to do, but our guards just didn’t adjust to their 2-2-1. We just quit attacking and got tentative. We’ve seen it all year, but we just got rattled for some reason.”
After that, the Dukes went on their own scoring run, earning 12-straight points to bring the score to 40-39, still in favor of the Mountaineers. A jumper from sophomore Wumi Agunbiade with 8:27 left in the second half gave the Dukes the go ahead score at 43-42. From there, both teams would trade the lead until a 3-pointer from sophomore Orsi Szecsi with 2:02 remaining silenced the Mountaineers for good.
West Virginia outshot Duquesne from the field goal range, at 37.5 percent (21-of-56). They also outshot Duquesne from the free throw line, at 75.0 percent (12-of-16).
The Dukes outshot the Mountaineers from beyond the arc, however, at 31.6 percent (6-of-19).
Altogether, West Virginia’s defense held Duquesne to just 29 percent (18-of-62) from field goal range and 65.5 percent (19-of-29) from the free throw line. The defense also collected six steals and six blocks.
It just wasn’t enough to overcome a spirited Duquesne squad that ended the day with two more rebounds than West Virginia at 46, 21 points off of Mountaineer turnovers and 16 points from its bench.
Junior Asya Bussie was just shy of a double-double with 21 points and nine rebounds. She was followed by freshmen Linda Stepney and Akilah Bethel, who each posted seven points for the Mountaineers.
The Dukes were led in scoring by Agunbiade who had 14 points, and Szecsi and senior Alex Gensler who each posted 11.
“We missed a lot of easy shots, but they did too,” ended Carey. “They out-hustled us. They wanted the game more than we did and it’s a shame because we had the game in hand on two different occasions.”
The Mountaineers return to action on Tuesday, Dec. 20 when they play host to Mount St. Mary’s in a 7 p.m. tip.
“Suzie (McConnell-Serio) does a great job,” said coach Carey. “They’re well coached and she does a great job. Give them a lot of credit. They never quit and kept battling.”
On Friday, Carey stated that it would be important for his team to hold Duquesne to less than its average of 80 points if they were going to have a chance to defeat the Dukes (9-1). While the Mountaineers (7-3) were able to do that, they weren’t able to post a strong enough offensive performance to come away with the win.
West Virginia opened the second half with a 9-3 scoring run that started with sophomore Taylor Palmer sinking a three at the 19:39 mark and culminated with a layup from junior Ayana Dunning with 14:33 left in regulation to give the Mountaineers a 17-point lead.
But Duquesne would not give up, effectively changing its defensive scheme to rattle West Virginia’s offense. Immediately after Dunning’s layup, a foul on junior Ahjah Hall allowed the Dukes to start a comeback with two free points from the charity stripe.
“They did a simple 2-2-1 and our guards just panicked and started turning the ball over and they started scoring,” said Carey. “They got the momentum and we just never could recover. We worked on that for about two months. I’m very frustrated. I kept putting guards in and explaining what we needed to do, but our guards just didn’t adjust to their 2-2-1. We just quit attacking and got tentative. We’ve seen it all year, but we just got rattled for some reason.”
After that, the Dukes went on their own scoring run, earning 12-straight points to bring the score to 40-39, still in favor of the Mountaineers. A jumper from sophomore Wumi Agunbiade with 8:27 left in the second half gave the Dukes the go ahead score at 43-42. From there, both teams would trade the lead until a 3-pointer from sophomore Orsi Szecsi with 2:02 remaining silenced the Mountaineers for good.
West Virginia outshot Duquesne from the field goal range, at 37.5 percent (21-of-56). They also outshot Duquesne from the free throw line, at 75.0 percent (12-of-16).
The Dukes outshot the Mountaineers from beyond the arc, however, at 31.6 percent (6-of-19).
Altogether, West Virginia’s defense held Duquesne to just 29 percent (18-of-62) from field goal range and 65.5 percent (19-of-29) from the free throw line. The defense also collected six steals and six blocks.
It just wasn’t enough to overcome a spirited Duquesne squad that ended the day with two more rebounds than West Virginia at 46, 21 points off of Mountaineer turnovers and 16 points from its bench.
Junior Asya Bussie was just shy of a double-double with 21 points and nine rebounds. She was followed by freshmen Linda Stepney and Akilah Bethel, who each posted seven points for the Mountaineers.
The Dukes were led in scoring by Agunbiade who had 14 points, and Szecsi and senior Alex Gensler who each posted 11.
“We missed a lot of easy shots, but they did too,” ended Carey. “They out-hustled us. They wanted the game more than we did and it’s a shame because we had the game in hand on two different occasions.”
The Mountaineers return to action on Tuesday, Dec. 20 when they play host to Mount St. Mary’s in a 7 p.m. tip.
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