PHILADELPHIA – Senior Victoria Macaulay scored a career-tying 21 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to lead Temple women’s basketball to a 55-41 win in the Owls’ season opener against Montana (0-1) on Friday night. The teams were tied at halftime but Temple (1-0) opened the second half on a 12-2 run and never looked back.
Sophomore Rateska Brown scored a career-high 13 points and hit 2-of-3 from behind the arc. Freshman May Dayan scored eight points in her debut as an Owl, while freshman Sally Kabengano scored seven and led all players with three steals.
Macaulay scored 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting in the first half as the Owls and Lady Griz battled the whole way. Brown hit 2-of-2 behind the arc, giving Temple momentum at some key points as they had to overcome some deficits.
Temple fell behind by 10 early on as Montana jumped out to a 16-6 lead, and the Owls still trailed by eight, 23-15 with 8:27 remaining in the half. Brown’s first trey started a 9-0 run that gave the Owls their first lead of the contest, 24-23 with 2:38 left in the half.
Brown soon hit her second trey for a 27-25 lead, and the Lady Griz went 2-of-4 at the line in the final 1:17 to take the teams into the locker room tied at 27-27.
Temple hit 10-of-23 from the field in the first half (43.5 percent), while holding Montana to 34.5 percent shooting. The Owls also won the battle on the glass, out-rebounding the Lady Griz 33-24.
The second half started much different from the first, as the Owls out-scored Montana 12-2 in the first 10 minutes to take a 39-29 lead. Temple held the Lady Griz to just a single field goal in that stretch.
Dayan drained her second three-pointer with nine minutes left for a 42-31 lead, and Temple never led by fewer than nine the rest of the way. The Owls were able to widen the margin to as many as 14 points on three occasions down the stretch. After struggling from the free throw line in the first half, the Owls hit 13-of-16 in the second half to keep Montana at bay.
The Owls will face a tough challenge in their second game of the season as they travel to #18/19 Nebraska for a 3:00 p.m. (EST) contest on Sunday, Nov. 11.
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