Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Fayetteville State Rallies to Edge Bowie State Lady Bulldogs71-67 in Overtime

Fayetteville State Rallies to Edge Bowie State Lady Bulldogs71-67 in Overtime


BOWIE, Md. - Bowie State surrendered a 17 point halftime lead and turned the ball over at critical times as Fayetteville State rallies to defeat the Lady Bulldogs 71-67 in overtime. The loss was the fifth straight for the home team as the Lady Bulldogs season mark drops to 1-5 in the CIAA (6-8 overall).

“You can’t win a ball game with 28 turnovers with several of those coming with the less than four minutes to go in the game”, said a dejected Lady Bulldogs head coach Renard Smith. “On top of that, we get two (free throw) chances to get one and blow that opportunity!”

Junior Donia Naylor (Washington, D.C.) scored a team and person season-high 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting to lead Bowie State. Graduate student Ashley Davis (Odenton, Md.) and junior Ashley Castle (Brooklyn, N.Y.) added 12 and 10 points respectively in the loss. Graduate student Uchechi Ahaiwe (Riverdale, Md.) grabbed a game and BSU personal best 14 rebounds to go along with nine points and four blocks, which tied her season-high.

The game was tight the first five minutes until Bowie State’s Davis and Castle scored back-to-back layups to give the Lady Bulldogs a small edge at 10-7 at the 14:03 mark. Bowie State lead grew to 21-9 by the midway mark and ballooned to 39-22 by halftime.

As exciting as the last few minutes were, the Lady Broncos wouldn’t have been able to put together meaningful buckets down the stretch if it wasn’t for a sprint out of the gate in the second half’s first three minutes.

After scoring just 22 points in the game’s first 20 minutes, FSU scored 10 in the first 2:23 of the second half to cut the deficit to 11. Bowie State still had a semi-comfortable nine point lead with 8:44 to play, but FSU scored seven straight points to cut it to 47-45 at the 6:48 mark.

Bowie State stretched the lead back out to six and FSU clawed back once again, but the Lady Broncos trailed until Je’lena Robertson’s (Houston, Texas) layup finally tied things up.

With the game tied at 60-all, Bowie State senior Moriah Goodman (Baltimore, Md.) was fouled with 1.8 seconds left in regulation and stepped to the free throw line with a chance to win the game. However, both free were missed sending the game into overtime.

The Lady Broncos scored the first two points of the overtime session on a Deja Middleton (Richmond, Va.) layup. But Bowie State scored the next five points (all by Naylor) and FSU had one last rally left in them.

Fayetteville State (11-4 / 4-2 CIAA) scored nine points in a row on jumpers by Middleton and Bria Robinson (Charlotte, N.C.), a Robinson free throw and four Emerald Calvin (Durham, N.C.) free throws to close the game out.

The Lady Broncos outscored Bowie State 18-2 off of turnovers in the second half after being outscored 18-8 in the first frame. Bowie State actually out-rebounded Fayetteville State 43-42, but FSU’s Middleton and Bria Robinson (Charlotte, N.C.) combined for 20 boards.

Calvin led both teams in scoring with a game-high 19 points, which included 13-of-14 free throws. Middleton recorded a double-double of 15 points and 13 rebounds, while Robertson and Akysia Resper (Concord, N.C.) added 13 and 10 points respectively.

The Lady Bulldogs begin (CIAA) divisional games this coming Saturday (January 18) as Bowie State travels to The Lincoln University for a key 2 pmclash.

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