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Rice University Athletics
Women's Hoops Preps for Marshall
2/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 28, 2008
HOUSTON - The Rice women's basketball team (11-17, 4-10 C-USA) heads in the final weekend of the regular season against Marshall (14-14, 6-8 C-USA) Thursday evening at Sharp Gym on the Houston Baptist campus.
Valeriya Berezhynska racked up 15 points and 15 rebounds, while Morgan Mayse chipped in 12 points for her ninth double figure effort in 14 conference games. Brittney Hudson also totaled 10 second half points as Rice overcame a seven-point halftime defecit for a 57-49 deficit at Tulsa.
The Thundering Herd has lost eight of its last 11 games and dropped a 60-48 decision to UAB last time out. Kizzy Hart averages 13.6 points per game with 169 of her 376 shots coming from three-point territory, while Casey Baker adds 11.3 points and four assits per game. On the interior, Alyssa Hammond tallies 10.5 points per game on 51.5 percent from the floor.
"We have a chance if we take care of business this weekend to take some momentum into the conference tournament," head coach Greg Williams said. "Marshall is a very athletic team that has seven or eight players that can score 12 to 20 points on any given night. They're quick on the perimeter and a key for us is to keep them from getting to the basket."
Tip-off against Marshall is set for 7pm CT. KTRU 91.7 FM and RiceOwls.com will have all of the action live with the pregame show beginning at 6:45pm CT. RiceOwls.com also will provide live stats for free via GameTracker.
Series History: Owls and Thundering Herd
This evening's contest against Marshall is the third meeting in the all-time series. The series is tied at 1-1 with the two teams holding serve on their home floors.
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, to down Marshall 83-79 last season at Marshall.
Neaves also recorded her 42nd career double-double, scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 reboards after missing four games due to an injury.
The Owls poured on the pressure jumping out to a 23-8 advantage. Withrow's jumper with 11:22 left started a Marshall rally that cut the Rice lead to seven with 9:26 remaining.
The game stayed knick and tuck until Marshall used an 11-3 spurt over the final three minutes to notch a 48-38 halftime lead.
After Marshall took a 13-point advantage in the opening minutes of the second half, 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 the lead and pulled to 79-78 as Barnette split a pair of free throws with 48 seconds left. Stovall calmly knocked down four free throws down the stretch to secure the 83-79.
