Lady Pirates' Winning Streak Halted By Cincinnati
February 09, 2003 | Women's Basketball
GREENVILLE, N.C. -The East Carolina women's basketball team (10-11, 2-6 C-USA) fell to Cincinnati (17-5, 7-2 C-USA) this afternoon, 83-69, in a Conference USA matchup here in front of a crowd of 679, halting ECU's two-game winning streak.
Samantha Pankey got the scoring started, hitting a jump shot at 19:29 of the period, but Cincinnati's Debbie Merrill answered the call, putting the first two Bearcat points on the board to tie things at two. Jennifer Jackson scored the next five Pirates points, and Courtney Willis added two and the Lady Pirates found themselves up by five points on the Bearcats. At the 12:44 mark of the first half, Cincinnati earned its first lead of the game after a three-point basket by Valerie King. Up by four, 15-11, Shanita Sutton hit a basket from inside the lane to pull the women within two. It would be as close as ECU would come to the lead for the remainder of the game. Cincinnati went up by as much as 14 at one point in the half.
The Lady Pirates were able to cut the Bearcat lead to six late in the half, put two baskets within the last minute of play gave Cincinnati the 10-point lead heading into the break.
Cincinnati went up by 11 early in the second half, but East Carolina battled back and cut the lead to six at the 13:55 mark on a lay-up by Pankey. However, the Bearcats responded to ECU's challenge and led by as many as 19 late in the second half. The Lady Pirates pulled within 11 points late in the half, but that's as close as they would get.
"When playing against a team of their caliber, it is difficult to come back from a huge deficit," said ECU head coach Sharon Baldwin-Tener.
The Lady Pirates were led by Jackson who had 29 points and six rebounds. She was followed by Willis with 15 points, and Tali Robich with five rebounds.
Merrill led the way for Cincinnati with 28 points and 10 boards. Carolyn Alexander had 20 points, K.B. Sharp had 17, scoring her 1,000th career point at Cincinnati, and Valerie King ended the afternoon with 10.
The Lady Pirates will hit the road this weekend, February 14-16 to take on Marquette and DePaul in a double dose of Conference USA action. The Pirates will face Marquette on Friday, February 14 at 8:00 p.m. EST and DePaul on Sunday afternoon, February 16 at 3:00 p.m. EST.
