Rice University
Tulsa
Owls Ease Past Tulsa 70-47
1/30/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2011
Houston - The Rice Owls had a ferocious start to Sunday's battle with Tulsa by outscoring the Golden Hurricane 23 to 2 and they finished strong to win 70-47 for their third-straight Conference USA victory. With the season sweep of TU, Rice improves to 13-9 overall and 5-3 in C-USA, while Tulsa drops to 5-10 on the season and 1-6 in league action. The Owls previously defeated Tulsa 61-53 on Jan. 9 in Tulsa.
At the 7:41 mark in the first half, Rice was ahead 28-10 as it scored 17 of those points off of 12 Tulsa turnovers. The Owls were up 39-21 at the break. The Golden Hurricane then outscored the Owls 10 to 2 at the start of the second half to cut the lead to 10 (41-31).
It was 48-35 (10:35) in Rice's favor when the Owls effectively put the game away with a 12-0 run that was ignited by a three-bomb from Brianna Hypolite. In that run, seven of the Owls' points came at the free throw stripe. Rice outscored TU 31-26 in the final 20 minutes.
Three Owls were in double-digit scoring. Sophomore sharp shooter Jessica Goswitz drilled five three-pointers for a game-high 19 points. Goswitz also made 5-7 from three-point range at Tulane on Thursday.
Junior Brianna Hypolite tallied 16 points and senior Morgan Mayse had another fantastic game with 15 points and 7 rebounds. Mayse had 21 points during Thursday's thrilling win.
Freshman Jessica Kuster led the Owls with 10 rebounds and she also had 8 points and three blocks. Junior point guard D'Frantz Smart had a game-high 7 assists and a game-high 7 steals for Rice.
Tulsa was led by Jessica McQuinn's 15 points off the bench, while Taleya Mayberry had 12 points and Denise Lewis posted 10 points and 13 rebounds.
The Owls are not in action until next Sunday when they host SMU at 2 p.m. Inside Tudor Fieldhouse.
