Rice University
SMU
Dodds Leads Mustangs Past Owls
2/15/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2007
Dallas -
Janielle Dodds scored a game-high 22 points and blocked four shots to lead SMU to a 64-50 win over Rice in Conference USA women's basketball action Thursday at Moody Coliseum. Lauren Neaves had her 49th career double-double for the Owls, scoring 17 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. The 10 boards made Neaves the all-time Rice rebounds leader, male or female, as she surpassed Michael Harris, who had 1,111 for the Owls.
SMU played aggressively on both ends and the Mustangs held off a Rice rally early in the second half to improve to 15-10 overall and 7-6 in C-USA play, while the Owls dropped to 15-11 and 8-5.
Rice led early on jumpers by Tiffany Loggins and Krystal Frazier, but Delisha Wills scored twice to give the Mustangs a 13-8 lead with 12:54 to go. Dodds made a layup to increase the margin to seven before Valeriya Berezhynska scored her first bucket after missing seven games due to injury to bring Rice back within five. A Loggins jumper and a basket by Kadie Riverin tied the game at 21-21, but SMU closed out the half with an 8-4 stretch to make it 29-25 at the break.
Samantha Stovall keyed a quick start to the second half for the Owls with a three-pointer to tie it at 29-29. After that it was all SMU as the Ponies built a 15-point lead with 10:31 left in the contest. The Mustang lead went as high as 17 at 52-35 with 8:57 to go and Rice never cut it into single digits.
The Owls shot a poor 31.1 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 18 times. SMU was 37.7 percent from the field and went 15-16 from the line. Wills added 14 points in the win, and blocked three shots.
Rice plays at Tulsa Saturday at 2 pm.
