Tampa, FL (January 18, 2006) ? The University of South Florida women's basketball team ended its three-game losing streak tonight with a 73-55 win over Syracuse at the Sun Dome.
All-America candidate Jessica Dickson (Ocala, FL) ? the nation's leading scorer ? reached her average yet again scoring a game-high 25 points. Rachael Sheats (Marietta, GA) added 12 points, and Nalini Miller (Capital Heights, MD) and Shantia Grace (Sarasota, FL) chipped in with 10 points apiece.
“Do I think we played well tonight, no, I don't think we played well tonight,” said USF head coach Jose Fernandez. “We took 70 shots tonight, that's a lot of possessions. We took 70 shots, had nine turnovers, and forced about 24 of 25 shots, and only game up single digit offensive rebounds (9). So as bad as we played, we still won. The big thing is that we're back home now. It's good to be back home. We have to take care of business on Saturday (against Providence) and get back to .500 in this league before we go on a tough road trip to Connecticut and Notre Dame next week.”
The Orange (7-10, 0-6 BIG EAST) got out of the gate quickly to take a 4-1 lead two and a half minutes into the contest on a jumper by Jenny Eckhart. The Bulls, however, used a modest 5-0 run to take a 6-4 lead with 15:53 left in the half on a lay up by Ezria Parsons (Bushnell, FL). USF (12-6, 2-3 BIG EAST) never looked back leading by as many as 16 points in the first half, and eventually took a 41-27 lead into the locker room at the intermission.
The Bulls came out with the same intensity in the second half never letting Syracuse get closer than 10 points in the final stanza.
USF would lead by as many as 20 points in the second half, 73-53, on a ChiChi Okpaleke (Tampa, FL) lay up with 1:02 left in the game
The Bulls used their stifling defense to put the game away forcing the Orange into 24 turnovers on the night which led to 23 points for the Bulls. USF had just nine miscues in the win leading to five points.
Tracy Harburt led Syracuse with 16 points and Vaida Sipaviciute added 14 points. Brittany Smith grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds in a losing effort.
The Bulls will be back in action on Saturday at 7 p.m. when they face Providence at the Sun Dome. The game can be seen live on Catch 47 in the Tampa Bay area and will also be carried on WTBN 570 & 910 AM with Tom Krasniqi handling the play-by-play and Amanda Miller with the color commentary.
For ticket information, call the USF athletic ticket office at 1-800-GoBulls.
