Senior guard Shey Peddy once again kept the women’s basketball team afloat in the Owls’ 64-59 victory over Harvard in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament second round.
Temple blew an 11-point first-half lead and at one point trailed the Crimson by four with just over five minutes remaining. But an 8-1 Owls run gave the lead back to the home team. Peddy sealed the deal in the final minute with four free throws to keep Harvard out of striking distance.
“Harvard is a great team,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “They play really, really hard. Watching them on film it made me nervous, because they play a lot like Villanova.”
“On offense, they work themselves around, they run all over the place just like Villanova, and they don’t stop moving,” Cardoza added.
Peddy led the way once again with 24 points on 7-of-14 shooting, including four treys. She also snagged five rebounds and had two steals. But 18 of her points came in the first half.
“In the first half I was making all of my shots, and in the second half I wasn’t and I think I was just rushing my shots and being anxious,” Peddy said.
But the 18 points was enough to give the Owls a lead at home heading into the break, 39-29. The Crimson came back strong, though, going on a 7-0 run to narrow the deficit to three, 39-36. With ten minutes remaining they took their first lead, 48-49, and eventually pushed it to five.
“All of their guys are capable of knocking down threes, so that’s what they look to do,” Cardoza said. “They were playing to their strengths: dribble-penetrate and kick.”
“We just got lucky down the stretch that we came up with some key rebounds and really fought in the last two minutes to win the game,” she added.
Junior forward Victoria Macaulay finished strong after a slow first half, knocking down 10 points to go along with seven rebounds. Junior forward Brittany Lewis had another strong game as well, with eight points and 13 rebounds, one basket away from her third straight double-double.
The Owls are currently without senior center Joelle Connelly, who Cardoza said has to work on her classwork.
“It’s pretty tiring, but you’ve got to hang in there,” Macaulay said. “All three of us—me, [Lewis and sophomore forward Nikki Works]—we all try to work together if somebody needs a breather.”
The Owls await the result of the Syracuse vs. Drexel game on Monday night. The Owls will travel to which team wins and will play sometime between March 21-23, depending on the WNIT’s scheduling decision.
Jake Adams can be reached at jacob.adams@temple.edu.
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