Rice University
Marshall
Berezhynska, Neaves Lead Owls Past Herd
1/11/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2007
Houston -
Valeriya Berezhynska scored a game-high 22 points and Lauren Neaves became only the third Rice player, male or female, to have 1,000 career rebounds, as the Owls (9-8, 2-2) overcame a 25-point first-half point swing to down Marshall (10-7, 3-2) 83-79 Thursday in Conference USA play at Autry Court.
With her seventh rebound of the game at the 5:43 mark in the second half, Neaves joined Michael Harris (1,111) and Brent Scott (1,049) in the elite rebound club. She also had her 42nd career double-double, scoring 16 points and hauling down 10 boards in her first game back after missing four contests due to injury.
Meg Withrow opened the scoring for Marshall with an easy layup, but after that the Owls poured on the pressure for the next eight minutes to open up a 15-point margin at 23-8. Withrow's jumper with 11:22 left started a Marshall rally that cut the Rice lead to seven with 9:26 remaining, and after a Samantha Stovall basket made it 26-17 Rice, the Thundering Herd racked up a 13-4 run to tie the game at 30-30 with 5:46 remaining. Megan Samis swished a three-pointer and Modupe Ishola added two free throws to put the Herd up 37-33 with just under four minutes to go, but Tara Watts drove in for a layup to pull Rice back within two. After that, Marshall used four Ishola charity shots and a pair of Samis buckets to roll to a 48-38 halftime lead.
Marshall kept the lead in double digits for the first five minutes of the second half before Kadie Riverin hit a layup and a free throw to bring the Owls within eight at 56-48. An Ishola layup and a three-pointer by Alix Barnette pushed the gap back up to 13, but Rice staged a frenetic 21-0 run with aggressive defense and a slashing offense to take a 69-61 lead with 7:10 to go. The Herd whittled away at that lead over the next two minutes, and another Barnette trey made it 73-70 for the Owls. Neaves and Krystal Frazier scored from the field to stretch the lead to 77-70, but Marshall refused to quit as Barnette canned yet another long-distance shot. Barnette hit the first of a pair of free throws with 48 seconds left to cut Rice's lead to 79-78, but missed her second attempt. Stovall calmly knocked down four free throws down the stretch to give Rice its second straight C-USA win and even the series with the Herd at 1-1.
Rice had all five starters score in double figures, with Riverin (15), Frazier (14) and Stovall (11) joining Berezhynska and Neaves. The Owls shot 45.7 percent from the field and 78.3 percent from the line.
The Herd also shot well from the field, hitting 46.8 percent, and from the line, converting 77.8 percent. Marshall hit 7-15 from long distance, and had a 41-37 rebounding edge. Barnette had a career-high 19 points, with Ishola adding 18 points and nine boards. Samis contributed 13 points, and Withrow had 11 points and five assists.
