Senior guard Kristen McCarthy remained white-hot in the Liacouras Center with a season-high 21 points on Wednesday, but it wasn’t enough for the women’s basketball team to overcome an equally hot St. Bonaventure squad.
McCarthy kept up her streak of five-games with double-digit points, averaging 16.8 points during the stretch, including an Atlantic Ten Conference Co-Player of the Week Award.
“I’ve just really been trying to really focus more,” McCarthy said. “Just having a good mental focus. It means nothing if we can’t come up with the win. But I’m just trying to do what I can for my team and just trying to win every game.”
Senior guards Shey Peddy and BJ Williams tacked on 17 and 14 points, respectively, alongside McCarthy but it wasn’t enough to stop the Bonnies. The 74-65 loss at home drops the Owls to 1-1 in A-10 play.
St. Bonaventure opened up the game 8-2 off back-to-back three’s. That remained the theme for the night as the Bonnies connected on seven of 15 from downtown, including five of eight in the first half.
Temple was never able to slow down their long-range game.
“The fact that they got 15 off is very disappointing,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “Last year, obviously, we did a better job of defending the three-point shot and we actually sat down and guarded them a little bit better.”
The Owls stayed close in the early part of the game, but 16-2 run by the Bonnies in just a three-minute span halfway through the first half put Temple in a hole they couldn’t dig out of. The closest they would get the rest of the game was six points, which they did twice in the second half.
“This is a very disappointing loss, but we knew coming into the game that this was going to be a very difficult game,” Cardoza said. “St. Bonaventure’s playing really good basketball. They’re a well coached team.”
“They play to their strengths, and I thought they did an excellent job of attacking us on offense and then making it difficult to score on the other end,” Cardoza added. “So my hat goes off to them and the job that they were able to do tonight.”
The Owls return to action on Sunday against A-10 preseason-co-favorite Dayton. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Jake Adams can be reached at jacob.adams@temple.edu
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