FIT Women Beat Embry-Riddle, Snap Four-Game Losing Streak

DeLise Williams scored 23 points in Wednesday's win

Florida Tech’s women’s basketball team got the new year off to a good start, with a 73-60 win over Embry-Riddle Wednesday night, at the Clemente Center. The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Panthers and moved them to 5-1 at home.

Embry-Riddle fell to 9-4 overall, suffering their first loss in Sunshine State Conference play this season.

DeLise Williams led the home team with 23 points, while Julie McCarthy and Tereza Sedlakova had 15 apiece.

“We haven’t had three guys in double figures in a while,” said Panthers Coach John Reynolds. “Every kid on that team played hard tonight and I was pretty happy with the effort.”

The Eagles had four players in double figures, led by Tara Fields, who scored a career-high 20 points.

The Panthers (7-6, 3-4 SSC) led 20-17 after a back-and-forth first quarter, but the Eagles stormed back in the second quarter, outscoring the Panthers 22-10. The Panthers, who had shot 57.1% in the first quarter, went cold in that second stanza, shooting just 23.5%.

Embry-Riddle led comfortably for much of the second quarter and scored their biggest lead of the game, when Jessica Savage hit a jumper at the buzzer, to put the Eagles up 39-30 at the break.

To make matters worse, the Panthers lost starter Gracie Doane 20 seconds into that second quarter on a play under the basket. She had to be helped off the court and did not return. Reynolds did not know the exact nature of the injury, after the game.

The Panthers got after it defensively in the third quarter, Williams stole the ball with 8:47 left in the quarter, as the shot clock expired on the Eagles and she raced to the other end for the bucket. Moments later, McCarthy missed a foul shot, but got her own rebound and dished to Williams, who scored, closing the gap to 41-38.

With 4:22 left in the half, Embry-Riddle stretched their lead to 45-40, but the Panthers battled back to take the lead 46-45 on a Markeema Crawford bucket. That lead was short-lived, as Lauren Ellenberger hit a three for the Eagles with 30 seconds to go in the quarter, giving the visitors a 48-46 lead with 30 seconds left.

At the start of the fourth, after a basket by Embry-Riddle, the Panthers got a three-point play from 

McCarthy and were eventually able to tie the score at 52 with 8:46 to go. Sedlakova’s jumper with 7:52 to left gave the Panthers the lead. It started a six-point run that put the Panthers up 58-52.

Embry-Riddle answered that with five straight points and cut it to one, 58-57 with 5:27 left. Williams then hit a shot and got two free-throws on the next possession to boost the lead back to 62-57. That put the Eagles in a position to have to foul the rest of the way and the Panthers won the game from the free-throw line.

"What’s been beating us during this (losing streak) is a lack of total team effort,” said Reynolds. “It was just shear effort and heart from the whole team. I don’t care which kid we brought off the bench, everybody played their role at some point in that game, everybody.”

The effort Reynolds spoke of showed up big time in the rebounding. The Panthers had 48 rebounds, including 27 offensive rebounds, helping them to 28 second chance points.

“I thought we battled on the glass all night,” Reynolds said. “I always say if you wanna find out what kind of team you have, look at the rebounding stats, that’ll tell you what kind of heart they have. I thought on the glass tonight, we were just dominating."

Crawford and Sedlakova finished with nine rebounds each and McCarthy and Aniquah Swan had seven apiece. Gudlau Juliusdottir chipped in with six.

For more info: Embry-Riddle @ Florida Tech Box Score

“We didn’t drag the four losses,” said Reynolds. “One game at a time, you can’t drag it to the next game. We can’t get the games back, so we can’t do anything about it. We can only stay in the moment.”

The Panthers will next be in action on Wednesday, January 11 at Florida Southern, in another Sunshine State Conference matchup. The tip is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. 

This blog is an extension of our website - Sportslowdown.com Follow us on Twitter @sports_lowdown