St. Mary's City, MD-- The St. Mary's College of Maryland Women's Basketball Team (9-5) kicked off the new year by welcoming the Wildcats of Penn College (4-11) for their second United East Conference contest of the year. The Seahawks were able to scrap their way to a 56-54 victory.
How It Happened
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St. Mary's found themselves trailing 11-8 after a slow paced first quarter of play. Melanie Aguilar, Rachel Manning, and Tray Mobray all found the bottom of the net for the Seahawks. Both the Wildcats and Seahawks shot under 30% from the field in the opening 10 minutes of the game.
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The Seahawks were able to tie the game early in the second quarter thanks to back to back buckets from Stephanie Howell and Olivia Liszt. St. Mary's would go on to take their first lead since the opening minutes after an Amira Whitaker three pointer about midway through the period. Penn College would get their lead back shortly thereafter and take a two point advantage into the halftime break.
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Penn College started the second half on a roll with a 7-2 scoring advantage over the first five minutes. The Seahawks did a nice job of not panicking and went on a 10-2 run of their own that was capped by a Rayna Miller three pointer that bounced off the glass and went in. Despite the strong run, the Wildcats enjoyed a three point lead going into the fourth quarter.
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The Wildcats began the fourth quarter by extending their lead to nine with roughly seven minutes left to go. St. Mary's would continue to fight back and kick started a stretch of great offensive basketball with an Olivia Liszt three pointer. Amira Whitaker would follow that by scoring seven straight points on her own to tie the game at 49 a piece. Whitaker would follow that up with arguably the biggest shot of the game when she re-tied the game at 52 with a three pointer after Penn College hit one of their own. Sam Blaylock came up big down the stretch and scored layups on two straight possessions to give the Seahawks a four point advantage.
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The Seahawk defense would hold on the final possession of the game up two, forcing a missed three pointer from the Wildcats to take home a 56-54 victory.
Inside the Box Score
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Amira Whitaker had a game high 18 points and six rebounds.
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Stephanie Howell came down with a team high 11 rebounds.
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Olivia Liszt contributed nine points off of three three pointers.
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The Seahawks extended their winning streak against the Wildcats to five games.
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