Lady Danes lose

[Dane Pound]

Danes led by 7 at halftime and let it get away. Army is 5-0.

 

ARMY COMES FROM BEHIND TO DEFEAT ALBANY, 79-72

 

West Point, N.Y. -- Senior Katie Macfarlane scored 21 points and gathered 10 rebounds to lead Army in a come-from-behind victory over Albany, 79-72, in a non-conference contest on Wednesday evening at Christl Arena.

 

Army (5-0), which is off to its best start since the 1985-1986 season, trailed 47-42 with 14:35 remaining before Mallory Fritz, who finished with a career-high 21 points, knocked down one of her five 3-pointers to ignite a 13-0 run. Macfarlane, the reigning Patriot League Player of the Year, and Jen Hansen each had five points during that span to give the Black Knights a 55-47 lead at the 11:10 mark.

 

Albany (1-3) answered with an 8-0 run of its own keyed by six of Jen Schumacher’s career-high 19 points. Schumacher converted an old fashioned three-point play as she was fouled on a drive to the basket and on the next trip down hit a long-range jumper from the left side to cut the Army lead to two. After a Black Knight turnover, senior guard Sarah Sweetland drove the lane and tied the affair at 55 apiece with 8:44 to go.

 

The Black Knights, which trailed 39-32 at the half, responded with a 10-2 run to build a 65-57 lead with 5:19 left. Macfarlane, who scored 17 of her 21 points in the second half opened the spurt with a lay up and ended it with a jumper from the right elbow.

 

The Great Danes closed the gap to three on two occasions, the last one coming on a free throw by Becky Ayers, who finished with 15 points, with 26 seconds remaining. Army, which shot 21-of-23 from the free throw line, converted all four shots from the charity stripe down the stretch to seal the victory.

 

"In the past three games, we played well in the second half," said head coach Trina Patterson, whose team returns home to play Colgate on Saturday, Dec. 6 at 1 p.m. "I thought the first five minutes of the second half was crucial, the tempo of the game got away from us. Regardless of that, we had big plays from Jen Schumacher to close the gap and Maree Jones also had a nice game."

 

Alicia Learn and Maree Jones had 14 and 11 points, respectively, as each grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. Haley Edwards, who dished out a career-high nine assists, and Shavonne Holden tallied 10 points apiece for Army

[professor]

Albany beat this same Army team very easily last year. 65-49. What happened? Army used the same players.

[AlbanyObserver]

My question .... who goes to the bench when Hutcheson returns??? My guess is Jones would become the "sixth woman" ... you can't move Schumacher to the bench the way she is playing. Learn provides more offense than Jones. Either way, that first player off the bench would be solid ... but everything drops off after that.

[Dane Pound]

Tough call but you're probably right. No way it's Ayers, Sweetland or Learn going to the bench. I wasn't real impressed with Schumaker last year but she is really playing well so far this year. As evidenced on Sunday the Danes can really use Hutch back not so much for her scoring but her interior defense.

[statefan]

My assumption all along is that Schumacher will not start when Hutchison returns. If I never see the necessity of playing three guards at a time, either men's or women's, it'll be OK with me.

[Dane Pound]

The only problem I see with that is moving Ayers back to the guard spot. I question if she can guard smaller guards on the perimiter right now. She seems like a small forward to me.

[AlbanyObserver]

I do understand having Schumacher come off the bench, but let's be logical here -- she just scored a career-high 19 against Army. You could rotate Schumacher and Jones in and out of the starting lineup based on the opponent.

[Patch]

I really believe Jones is going to be removed as a starter but that should be a positive for the team.

 

Jones has a tendency to pick up fouls in a hurry this may help her get an idea of who she will be guarding and she will definitely inject energy into the team when she comes in.

 

After the first 5 minutes it doesn't matter who started, what really counts is who is on the court when the game is on the line at the end.

 

They'll get into a rotation and those who are playing well will log the most minutes.