{"id":34501,"date":"2015-01-15T01:57:22","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T06:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=34501"},"modified":"2015-01-15T01:59:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T06:59:06","slug":"lehigh-acres-night-at-fgcu-wbb-win-over-unf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/01\/lehigh-acres-night-at-fgcu-wbb-win-over-unf\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Acres Night at <br>FGCU WBB Win Over UNF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lFNU9CCzDFg?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\"><\/iframe><\/center><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">By BILL LEVY \u00a0Photos of the game <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/media\/set\/?set=a.940320429313089.1073742123.219190881426051&amp;type=3&amp;uploaded=97\">Click Here\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">The residents of Lehigh Acres, along with others in the crowd of 1,504 fans at the Alico Center\u00a0on Wednesday\u00a0night were treated to a Florida Gulf Coast University women\u2019s basketball victory over the University of North Florida by a score of 75-42. The game was \u201cLehigh Acres Night,\u201d which was a joint effort by the\u00a0<\/span><em><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Lehigh Acres Gazette<\/span><\/em><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u00a0and the FGCU Athletic department to support and recognize the Lehigh Acres Community.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">After falling behind the Ospreys by scores of 13-4, 15-6 and 17-9 in the first half, the Eagles (15-2, 2-0) outscored their Atlantic Sun counterpart 16-8 the rest of the half to go into halftime leading 33-26.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe got off to a slow start,\u201d FGCU coach Karl Smesko said. \u201cNorth Florida did a nice job of executing their offense. I thought it was important to get the lead by halftime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\"><!--more-->The Eagles indeed were able to take the lead, thanks in large part to Whitney Knight, who had 13 of her 17 total points in the first half, including two of her three 3-pointers. With her team down 17-9 midway through the half, she was part of an 11-2 run where she had a 3-point shot, followed by a 3-point play, after making a field goal and converting the free throw, and a jumper shortly afterward, to help the FGCU stake a 22-19 lead; their first lead since being up 2-0.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe were getting more screens and executing our offense a little better,\u201d the 6\u20193\u201d guard from Winston-Salem, NC said. \u201cThat led to open shots. That\u2019s all it was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">FGCU opened the second half by outscoring North Florida (9-8, 0-2) 34-11 to take complete control of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cI thought the beginning of the second half was the key to the game,\u201d Smesko said. \u201cTaylor Gradinjan gave us a huge lift as she was making layups and making 3-pointers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">For the game, the Cudahy, WI product finished with 17 points, including four 3-pointers, with three of them coming in the second half.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe had more movement (in the second half),\u201d she said. \u201cThat created more open shots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">Also making a major contribution to the Eagles was DyTiesha Dunston, who had 11 points on the night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">Though Gradinjan tied her career high for 3-pointers, she downplayed the significance of that accomplishment afterwards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cI had no idea,\u201d she said, when asked if she knew she was approaching a milestone. \u201cI just go with the flow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">Those words must have been music to her coach\u2019s ears, as he seems to know what a special team he has this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe are trying to get better,\u201d Smesko admitted. \u201cWe are working on being more consistent. When we play FGCU basketball we can be really good and tough to beat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;\">Just ask anyone from Lehigh Acres who was at the game.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BILL LEVY \u00a0Photos of the game Click Here\u00a0 The residents of Lehigh Acres, along with others in the crowd of 1,504 fans at the Alico Center\u00a0on Wednesday\u00a0night were treated&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}