Freshman Vaida Sipaviciute led the Orange with a career-high 17 points.
SU Loses Third Straight, 81-50 at West Virginia
1/27/2005 2:14:00 PM | Women's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. – The Syracuse women's basketball team suffered its worst loss of the season, an 81-50 decision to West Virginia on Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum. It was SU's third straight loss and first three-game skid of the season. Freshman Vaida Sipaviciute led the Orange with a career-high 17 points. She also grabbed five rebounds and blocked five shots. The Orange is 10-8, 2-5 in the BIG EAST. The Mountaineers improve to 12-6, 3-4 in the league.
Orange freshman Mary Joe Riley tallied career highs in nearly every statistical category. Riley finished with nine points, three assists and no turnovers in 27 minutes. She also drained her first collegiate three-pointer. Sophomore Lauren Kohn had eight points, while freshman Jessica Richter chipped in six points. Richter snapped a five-game double digit scoring streak. Senior Rochelle Coleman and freshman Amanda Adamson each tallied four points. Riley's three-pointer in the first half was the first by someone not named Coleman, Kohn or Richter since Adamson hit one in the second game of the season at Yale on November 21.
Sherell Sowho scored 20 points to lead West Virginia, while Yolanda Paige finished with 15 points and 13 assists. Chakhia Cole tallied 19 points and 11 boards. Meg Bulger came into the game averaging 21 points per game for the Mountaineers and SU held her to nine points.
"You have to take your chances with this team and matchup the best you can," head coach Keith Cieplicki said. "One thing that we hoped to do was to contain them better in transition. We started to creep back into it, but they got too much from too many people."
The Mountaineers jumped out to a 12-4 lead, before Kohn nailed a three-pointer to cut the lead to five with 14:56 on the clock. West Virginia extended its cushion to 12 on a 17-10 run over the next six minutes to take a 29-17 lead. SU got the lead under double digits three times. WVU led 35-26 with 1:56 left in the first 20 minutes and Paige scored the last four points of the half. The Mountaineers went into the locker room with their largest lead, 39-26. Riley scored seven points in the opening frame, while Sipaviciute tallied six points, three rebounds and two blocks. The Orange was outrebounded 24-13 in the first half. Cole had 10 points in the first half.
SU cut the lead to 10 at 43-33 on a Richter layup with 17:06 left on the clock. The Orange would not get any closer after that. West Virginia used an 8-0 run to take a 51-33 advantage with 14:07 remaining in the game. Kohn brought SU within 13 on three-pointer to make the score 57- 44 with 7:50 left in the second half. The Mountaineers ended the game on a 24-6 run. Paige netted seven points and dished out two assists during the run.
WVU outrebounded SU 45-30 and tallied 21 points on 17 Syracuse turnovers. The Orange shot only 35.7% from the field and the Mountaineers cashed in on 47.1% of their field goals. The loss is SU's worst since losing 82-38 to UConn on February 11, 2004. West Virginia's 81 points is the most given up by Syracuse this season. SU has lost 17 straight games when giving up 80-or-more points.
The Orange returns home to host Villanova on Saturday, January 29 at 1 p.m. The game is High School Day and Manley Field House will accommodate more than 30 high school girls' teams. Prior to the game will be the Second Annual Alumni Game.
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