Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
East Carolina
East Carolina Deals MU Women 73-51 Loss in Greenville
1/2/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 2, 2007
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GREENVILLE, N.C. - The Marshall women's basketball team suffered a 73-51 loss to East Carolina on Tuesday at Minges Coliseum in its first Conference USA road game of the season.
Marshall (8-6, 1-1) shot a dismal 33.9 percent from the field while East Carolina (6-8, 1-0) scorched the nets for 50.0 percent shooting. ECU's Jessica Slack led all scorers with 16 points as all five of her field goals came from 3-point range, tying a career-high. Center Cherie Mills (15 points) and point guard Jasmine Young (12) were the Pirates other double-digit scorers.
Marshall never led in the game and fell behind by as many as 29 points just five-and-a-half minutes into the second half. The Thundering Herd fell victim to several East Carolina scoring runs and failed to counter with any offensive surges of its own. Marshall turned the ball over 24 times, its second-highest total of the season.
The Herd's Modupe Ishola (Washington, D.C.), the newly crowned C-USA Player of the Week, was held to only eight points and four rebounds while being matched up against Mills. The ECU defense limited her touches in the first half (0-for-2) while she went just 2-for-5 in the second frame.
MU's Meagan Samis (Oklahoma City, Okla.) tallied a team- and career-high 13 points. Samis and Chantelle Handy (Durham, England) tied for the team lead with five rebounds apiece.
Marshall did not score for the first four-and-a-half minutes of the second half while East Carolina netted eight points to build a 45-20 lead. Samis ended the scoring drought at 15:30, but another Pirate scoring burst provided a 52-23 ECU lead.
The hot-shooting Pirates eventually cooled off midway through the half, but Marshall's offensive woes did not allow the Herd to threaten ECU's lead.
Young, the 2005-06 C-USA Co-Freshman of the Year, added eight assists and five steals in 32 minutes. Marshall's point guard, sophomore Meg Withrow (Nitro, W.Va.) dished out three assists with four steals and four rebounds and sank her lone field goal (1-for-2) from beyond the arc.
East Carolina registered the game's first points one minute into the contest after Ishola blocked the Pirates first attempt, a jumper in the lane by Mills. An Alyssa Hammond (Oak Hill, Ohio) short-range jumper gave MU its first points to tie the game at 2-2, but the Herd would not score for the next four minutes while ECU built a 6-2 edge.
After Marshall tied the game at 11-11 on a jumper by Bridget Chacon (Las Cruces, N.M.), ECU went on a 14-0 run to grab a 25-11 lead. The Pirate run, which was capped by an Alicia Person jumper, kept the Herd scoreless for nearly seven minutes.
Marshall fought back with six unanswered points, but ECU responded with a half-ending 11-3 run to enter intermission up 36-20.
The loss was Marshall's worst defeat in conference play since suffering an 81-56 setback to Tulsa on Jan. 27, 2006.
In its next game Marshall will play host to UCF on Friday. Tip-off from the Cam Henderson Center is scheduled for 7 p.m.
