Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
16-5, 8-3
Lehigh
15-6, 7-4
Army Holds Off Lehigh for Seventh Straight Win
February 04, 2015 | Women's Basketball
Junior Kelsey Minato scored a game-high 23 points on 8-of-18 shooting and grabbed five rebounds for Army, while senior Olivia Schretzman posted her fourth double-double of the year with a season-high 19 points and 11 boards. Junior Jean Parker nearly reached a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds.
Lehigh junior Kerry Kinek led the Mountain Hawks with 15 points and six rebounds, while sophomore Lexi Martins and freshman Quinci Mann each netted 10 points.
Army converted each of its first three field goals to take an 8-0 lead before going on to hit five of its first seven shots and extend its advantage to nine, 12-3, after the opening 4:51 of the first half. Freshman Destinee Morris stole an errant pass at the 13:27 mark and finished a fast-break lay-in at the other end to bolster the Black Knights' advantage to 13 points, 16-3.
Lehigh cut its deficit to nine on three separate occasions, doing so for the final time at the 7:26 mark before putting together a 16-6 run over a 6:35 span that junior Amina Affini capped with a three-pointer with 40 seconds remaining to give the Mountain Hawks their first lead of the game, 30-29.
Freshman Lena' Hicks made a baseline jumper with 31 ticks left to put the Black Knights back up by a point. The visitors missed their final two shots of the period to send Army into the break with a 31-30 lead.
The game underwent three lead changes in the first 1:56 of the second period, but Minato sunk a pair of free throws to break a 34-34 tie and begin a 12-6 run that put the Black Knights up, 46-40, at the 10:13 mark.
Kinek scored four straight points before Affini made a lay-in to give the visitors a 49-48 advantage with 7:59 remaining in the second frame. Martins hit a free throw to extend Lehigh's run to 10-2 and give the Mountain Hawks a two-point lead, but Schretzman answered with a lay-in on the other end to make the score 50-50 with 7:01 to play.
Schretzman scored four points during an 8-1 Army run, as the Black Knights took a 56-51 lead at the 4:25 mark. Lehigh converted four straight free throws to cut Army's lead back to one before Schretzman made a lay-up in traffic to build the lead back to three with 1:29 remaining in the contest.
Lehigh trimmed the margin to one with a lay-up by Martins, but Army scored five unanswered points to build its lead to 65-59 with 19 ticks remaining. Senior Sarah Williams sank a three from the top of the arc with 12 seconds left to cut the deficit to three points before Schretzman made one of her two free throws at the eight-second mark to seal the victory.
“This game was everything I thought it was going to be,” said Army head coach Dave Magarity. “There's no question that Lehigh is one of the top teams in this league. One of the great things about our team is the poise and leadership of Olivia Schretzman. I recruited her to be a point-forward and that's exactly what she's become. For your power forward to be doing that night in and night out is a big deal.”
Army is back in action when travels to Annapolis, Md., on Saturday, Feb. 7 to take on Navy in the annual Star Game at 4:30 p.m.
GAME NOTES: Army improves to 28-29 all-time against Lehigh … the Black Knights extended their season-long winning streak to seven games … Kelsey Minato netted 23 points to surpass the 1,600-point mark for her career and now stands a 1,601, which ranks third in Academy history … Lena' Hicks scored the first points (4) of her career during a season-high nine minutes … Army shot over 80 percent (84.2 percent; 16-of-19) for the second game in a row after finishing 81 percent (17-of-21) from the line against Loyola on Jan. 31 … the Black Knights donned their pink uniforms for the first time this season and will continue to do so throughout the month of February in support of breast cancer awareness.
