Well that was quite a follow-up statement to the Rutgers game, now wasn’t it?
The women’s basketball team beat Dartmouth (1-5) tonight 65-29, holding the Big Green to only 11 points after halftime.
The 36-point win is Temple’s (4-2) largest since it beat Kent State 74-34 last December.
The Owls came out of the gate slowly, though, falling behind 10-4 early on before promptly going on a 23-0 run. They led 36-18 going into the second half.
“We talked about that, we talked about trying to put that game [versus Rutgers] behind us,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “And the only way we’d really be able to put that behind us was if we came out here and played well for 40 minutes. I think the adrenaline was probably going, and they might’ve had a little bit of thoughts about it, but once they were able to get things going, everything went out the door. It was just hard to get it started.”
That 18-point halftime lead swelled to 44-18 before Dartmouth scored its first points of the second half at 14:05.
At that point, Cardoza began resting some of her starters and used her bench players. Freshman forward Kristen McCarthy and freshman guard BJ Williams both saw more than 20 minutes of action a piece, and little-used junior guard Ranecia Fields and sophomore forward Danielle Brinkley both checked in at the end of the game.
“Anytime you can get those guys more minutes, it’s just going to help, especially with BJ [Williams] with Keisha [Eaddy] really being the only point guard,” Cardoza said. “Getting BJ minutes tonight was really important. I wanted to get her into the Rutgers game but never really felt comfortable, and I apologized to her. I told her I was going to look to get her more minutes from here on out.”
Williams’ play may have been Cardoza’s focus during the game, but it was sophomore guard Shaqwedia Wallace who stole the show. She led both teams in scoring with 18 and shot four of six from 3-point range. The team as a whole knocked down six of its 18 3-point attempts, an improvement from the 27 it took Monday night.
“I think for the most part, yeah, I am happy [about the outside shooting in this game], but we could always get better at it,” Cardoza said. “Six for 18, that’s still not a good percentage, but at least it wasn’t 27 jack-ups. Those guys, Shenita and Shanea, were able to shoot 22 shots. That’s something we need to continue to do. They need to get double-figure shots every single night. When they get collapsed, they need to be able to kick it out and find the open guy.”
Senior forwards Cotton and Landry both scored in double-figures again, as they’ve done in every game thus far this season.
They’ll look to continue that trend when Temple faces Florida State Sunday afternoon. The Seminoles came into the season ranked No. 21 and currently sit at 7-2. It will be the fourth game of the Owls’ five-game homestand.
“It’s another opportunity to play another team that’s really good and to see where we stand against top competition,” Cardoza said.
Game Notes:
Junior point guard LaKeisha Eaddy played only 10 minutes in the game. Cardoza said after the game that Eaddy was on crutches following the Rutgers game because of a groin injury. Cardoza said she limited her playing time because of that and because Eaddy was sick yesterday…Cotton came out early in the first half to ice her left hand. She played 22 minutes overall…This was the first meeting between Dartmouth and Temple since the Owls won 76-65 on Jan. 29, 1983…University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma is rumored to be looking to do a home-and-home with the Owls in the future.
Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.
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