Rice University
SMU
SMU Pulls Away Past Women's Hoops
2/21/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 21, 2008
Rice at SMU (Final Book - PDF) 
DALLAS - Valeriya Berezhynska tallied 26 points and 15 rebounds, while Morgan Mayse matched a career-high with 18 points, but the Rice women's basketball team dropped an 80-68 contest Thursday evening at Moody Coliseum on the SMU campus.
Berezhynska, the reigning C-USA's Co-Player of the Week, connected on 11-of-20 shots to surpass the 20-point plateau for the second consecutive game. Mayse's double figure tally was her eighth in 13 conference games.
Kadie Riverin, Tara Watts and Maudess Fulton had rough shooting nights for Rice (10-17, 3-10 C-USA). The trio was held to eight points on 3-of-20 from the floor, including a 0-for-9 clip from three-point range.
"Val and Morgan had fantastic nights in the post," assistant coach Carlos Quintero said. "Unfortunately for us, our guards didn't step up to the challenge. They're a very capable group. We couldn't find the answers that we needed to during SMU's last run."
The Mustangs (20-6, 10-3 C-USA) won their sixth straight game and finished on a 16-4 spurt over the final 5:39 to pull away for the 80-68 win.
Janielle Dodds scored 24 points on 9-of-11 from the floor and grabbed 10 rebounds, while Jillian Samuels added a career-best 20 points. Brittany Gilliam chipped in 16 points for the Mustangs.
The two teams fired back back-and-forth in the opening minutes before Rice snatched a 24-17 advantage at the 10:48 mark on a Brittney Hudson jumper. Hudson finished with nine points off the bench.
"Brittney came off the bench and gave us some good minutes," Quintero said. "We know she's capable of pulling up in transition and hitting those shots. She knows that she has to keep working hard everyday in practice if she wants to get better."
SMU fired back with six straight points over the next 1:23 capped by a Delisha Wills jumper to pull back to 24-23 with 9:25 to go.
Tiffany Loggins supplied seven points off the bench as Rice stretched the lead to 31-26 with 4:41 left. Samuels canned back-to-back three-balls coupled with a Gilliam lay-up as time expired to give the Mustangs a 36-33 edge going into halftime.
Berezhynksa and Mayse put the Owls on their banks en route to 14 of the team's first 17 points to even the score at 50-50 with 12:03 remaining.
Dodds sparked 11 straight SMU points over the next 3:05 to build a 61-50 advantage. The Owls charged back with 12-3 run to trim the deficit down to 64-62 with 5:39 on the clock.
Rice concludes a four game road trip Saturday at Tulsa. Tip-off is on-tap for 7:00pm CT. The Golden Hurricane (10-16, 6-7 C-USA) came away earlier tonight with a 66-57 win over Houston.
"Tulsa has been playing well at home," Quintero said. "We have to go in there Saturday with the attitude that we have to work hard for 40 minutes to be successful."
KTRU 91.7 FM and RiceOwls.com will carry all of the action live from the Donald W. Reynolds Center with a 6:45pm CT pregame show.
