Women's Basketball Falls to Army, 82-67
12/8/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The Air Force women's basketball team dropped the first game in women's basketball's equivalent of the Commander-in-Chief trophy, losing to Army Dec. 8 at West Point. As expected, it was a battle in the trenches, with Army escaping with an 82-67 victory.
Army began pulling away from the Falcons at the six-minute mark of the first half, using a run to pull out to a 14-point lead. After a timeout to regroup, the Falcons went on an 8-0 run to pull to within six points of the lead. The teams headed to their locker rooms with Air Force trailing 35-30.
"We executed well on offense, but our defense was not aggressive and solid for the full 40 minutes," head coach Sue Darling said.
The game see-sawed back and forth before Army was able to slowly extend its lead to double digits late in the game. Air Force was able to climb to within six points of the lead, but they would never get closer, as the Black Knights knocked down their free throws in the end. Army finished the game 34 of 43 (79 percent) from the free throw line. Air Force was just 12 of 22 (54.5 percent) from the line.
"They had open shots and they made them," Darling said. "We can't allow teams to shoot 58 percent from the field and expect to win. When you are on the road, you need to up your level of intensity and play better."
For the first time this season, Air Force had four players finish in double figures in scoring. Morgan Bennett and Ali Tomlinson led the team in scoring with 13 points each. Amoy Jackson added a career-high 11 points and Rozalyn Russ had 10 points. Russ led the team in rebounding, grabbing eight boards.
Therese Kelley notched her third consecutive double-double, grabbing 10 rebounds and scoring 20 points to lead the Black Knights in both categories. Katie MacFarlane scored 18 points, with most of her points coming at the charity stripe. Macfarlane went 12 of 13 from the line. Halaevalu Helu added 17 points for the Black Knights.
Samantha Clifton saw her first action of the season, coming into the game midway through the first half. Clifton, who had been sidelined with an ankle injury for the teams first six games, played 10 minutes in the loss.
Air Force (2-4) will play Lafayette Sunday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. MST.
