PHILADELPHIA (Tom Gola Arena) – Four players in double figures and an impressive defensive effort led Temple women’s basketball to a 71-44 win at La Salle (13-16, 7-7) on Saturday afternoon. It was the 13th win in a row for the Owls, who also reached the 20-win plateau for the ninth straight season.
Temple (20-8) finishes the Atlantic 10 regular season with a record of 13-1, identical to its record a year ago. The Owls also finished alone in second in the Big 5 standings with a record of 2-1.
The Owls’ next game is in the quarterfinals of the 2012 Buick Atlantic 10 Championships, which will be held nearby at Saint Joseph’s Hagan Arena. Temple has a first-round bye as the second seed, and will play at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 3, against the winner of a first-round game featuring the #7 seed vs. the #10 seed.
Freshman Tyonna Williams led four players in double figures, finishing with 14 points in the game. Shey Peddy scored 12 while Rateska Brown and Victoria Macaulay added 10 points apiece.
Kristen McCarthy led all players with nine rebounds along with four assists, and scored six points to move into fourth place all-time in career scoring, now with 1,577 points. McCarthy surpassed Kamesha Hairston (’07) who scored 1,573 points and was a first-round draft pick for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.
The Owls, who held La Salle to just 21 percent shooting and five goals in the first half, jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the first eight minutes with strong play under the basket by Joelle Connelly and Macaulay.
La Salle’s Alexis Scott scored a layup at 10:26 to narrow the gap to six, 12-6, but it would be the only bucket for the Explorers in the next six minutes. Temple used a 12-0 run to lead by 18, 24-6 with five minutes left in the first half. La Salle hit back-to-back three-pointers to end the run, but never came within fewer than 12 points the rest of the half.
Temple’s defense picked up again after the treys by La Salle, and the Owls held the Explorers to just one field goal the rest of the way. Peddy converted an old-fashioned three-point play in the final minute but La Salle answered with a trey- its fifth and final bucket from the field in the half.
The Owls led 31-18 at the break with a team-high seven points apiece from Peddy and Williams. Peddy also had four rebounds and three steals in the first half.
La Salle scored two quick buckets at the start of the second half to come within nine, but Temple quickly squashed any hope of an Explorer comeback. The Owls used an 11-0 run to go back ahead by a comfortable margin of 20, 44-24 less than five minutes into the second half.
From there, the lead was never fewer than 20 for the Owls the rest of the way. Brown hit Temple’s fourth three-pointer of the game with 9:27 remaining for a 26-point, 59-33 lead, its largest of the game to that point. Brown went on to hit double-digits for the game after back-to-back layups at the five and four-minute marks.
In the final five minutes, Temple outscored La Salle 12-7 with all three of the Owls’ freshmen on the floor.
Temple out-shot La Salle 51 percent to 26 percent for the game, and finished with a 44-31 edge on the glass.
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