Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
Wright State
Herd Women Grab 72-66 Win at Wright State
12/13/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 13, 2005
DAYTON, Ohio - The Marshall University women's basketball team upended Wright State 72-66 in the Raiders first home game of the season, Tuesday night at the Nutter Center.
Marshall (4-3) shot a team season-high 61.4 percent from the floor, including a red-hot 71.4 percent mark in the second half, and held the Raiders (3-5) to 36.8 percent shooting.
Marshall's Sikeetha Shepard-Hall (Houston, Texas) scored a game- and season-high 27 points on 7-of-12 shooting. The senior guard also dished out five assists with four rebounds and a steal.
Herd center Modupe Ishola (Washington, D.C.) netted 14 points with only one miss from the field, going 7-of-8. Guard Reshundra Smiley (Modesto, Calif.) led all MU players with a career-high eight rebounds, coupled with 12 points. It was the first time that a Herd guard stood alone as the team's leading rebounder since Amy Smith grabbed eight boards in MU's 2004 Mid-American Conference Tournament semifinal loss to Eastern Michigan.
WSU's Rhea Mays scored a team-high 16 points, followed by Brittney Whiteside's 15 points. Forward Whitney Lewis narrowly missed a double-double with a 10-point, nine-rebound effort.
Wright State closed its deficit to one point, 62-61, on a Mays 3-pointer with four minutes remaining, but the Herd went on a 6-0 run to take control of the game. Wright State staged a comeback attempt, but clutch MU free throw shooting kept the Raiders at bay.
The Herd opened the game on a 12-4 run, sparked by consecutive 3-pointers by Shepard-Hall on Marshall's first two possessions. After building a 21-9 lead on a Bridget Chacon (Las Cruces, N.M.) 3-pointer at 12:42, the Herd failed to sink a field goal for over five minutes. The cold streak allowed Wright State to surge back to knot the game at 25-25 on a Whiteside trey with six minutes remaining in the half.
The teams entered intermission tied at 33-33 after a back-and-fourth battle for the remainder of the first stanza. The Herd scored the final points of the period with 38 seconds left on a Mary Pat Statler (New Cumberland, W.Va.) 15-footer with the shot clock running out.
Shepard-Hall led all first-half scorers with 12 points as MU shot 52.2 percent from the floor. Chacon, making her first career start, registered all four of her assists in the opening frame.
Marshall freshman Kendra King (Fairfax, Va.) also made her first appearance in the starting lineup. She responded by going 3-for-3 from the floor (6 points) with four rebounds, a block, an assist and a steal.
Marshall, struggling from the free-throw line this season, sank all six of its attempts in the first half. The Herd finished the game with a season- high 80 percent success rate from the charity stripe.
Shepard-Hall moved up to fourth place on the Marshall career free throws made list by tying her career-high with 10 made (10-for-10) against the Raiders. She now has 273 free throws made and is 29 behind third place Sheila Johnson (1987-91).
MU will play its first Conference USA game on Friday at the Cam Henderson Center against East Carolina. The game will serve as Marshall's annual "Jam the Cam" contest, with a 7:00 p.m. tipoff against the Pirates.
