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Jennifer McNamee
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CLEVELAND - The Niagara women's basketball team played a close, competitive first half, but was unable to maintain a second half rally in an 80-61 defeat at the Cleveland State Vikings on Sunday afternoon. Ohio natives Kristina Walton (Cleveland, Ohio) and Jennifer McNamee (Oxford, Ohio) each scored 13 points to lead Niagara (1-10, 0-2 MAAC) in scoring.
“I thought we did a lot of good things today,” head coach Kendra Faustin said. “Our half court defense was good and we were productive on offense. If we would have taken care of the ball better it would have been a different game.”
Cleveland State (5-6, 0-0 Horizon) finished the last 3:54 of the first half on a 10-2 run to take a 36-28 halftime lead. The first half witnessed seven lead changes and three tied scores. The Purple Eagles took an early 5-0 lead to start the game and held a 25-24 lead with 4:43 left in the half.
NU was able to break the Vikings' press regularly to create open shots and get to the free throw line.Though, Niagara went into a turnover frenzy midway through the half. The Vikings' pressure eventually caused turnovers, leading to four-straight Purple Eagles miscues in a span of two minutes.
CSU achilles heel was its poor shooting, but the Vikings made up the difference at the free throw line. Niagara went cold to end the half as Cleveland State built its largest lead of 10 points with 40 seconds remaining. Niagara stopped the run with a Kristina Walton (Cleveland, Ohio) put back as time expired.
The Vikings changed their game plan and focused on interior points to fix their poor perimeter shooting. Their first eight points of the second half came. CSU took its largest lead at 52-32 from the combination of its inside scoring and Niagara's turnovers and missed layups.
Niagara cut the lead to 14 twice and had chances to string along points to shift momentum; however, the Purple Eagles continued to miss shots and make unforced turnovers. The Purple and White did shoot 40.7 percent (24-59) from the field, but was a miserable 9-for-18 (50 percent) at the free throw line. In contrast, the Vikings were 31-36 (86.1 percent) at the line.
Niagara’s Ohio natives carried the Purple Eagles; Walton collected her second career double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds, McNamee scored 13 points and Erika Harris (Gahanna, Ohio) scored seven points and brought down four rebounds.
Rachele Folino (Novi, Mich.) scored 12 second-half points to join McNamee and Walton as players who scored in double-figures.
CSU's guard Kailey Klein led the game with 25 points and was 14-for-14 at the free throw line.
Niagara will have a week off before its next game. The Purple Eagles will face the Iowa State Cyclones on Dec. 29 as part of the Cyclone Classic.
