{"id":34969,"date":"2015-02-12T23:07:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T04:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=34969"},"modified":"2015-02-12T23:07:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T04:07:00","slug":"fgcu_wbb-rolls-by-northern-kentucky-with-75-47-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/02\/fgcu_wbb-rolls-by-northern-kentucky-with-75-47-win\/","title":{"rendered":"FGCU_WBB Rolls By Northern Kentucky with 75-47 Win"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Rick De Paiva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Backed by four double-figure scorers and 12 makes from 3-point range, the FGCU women’s basketball team ran away with a 75-47 victory over Northern Kentucky University Thursday night at Alico Arena. With their 17th-straight win, the Eagles move to 22-2 on the season with a perfect 9-0 record in Atlantic Sun action, while the Norse fall to third place in the A-Sun with a 5-4 record and a 14-10 mark overall.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u00a0marked the second-straight game that the Eagles defeated the second-place team in the A-Sun by 20 points or more as the Green and Blue handed Stetson a 61-39 loss in DeLand last weekend.<\/p>\n

The Eagles and Norse traded buckets to open the game, with each team shooting over 66 percent early on in the fast-paced bout, but FGCU constructed an 11-3 run midway through the half with 3 long-range shots to take control. After leading 42-24 at the break, the Eagles held NKU to just two points through the first nine minutes of the second half and increased their lead to a game-high 41 points. NKU battled back late in the contest but could never challenge the Green and Blue lead as FGCU ran away with a 75-47 victory in front of the home crowd.<\/p>\n

The win marks the Eagles’ 60th-straight conference victory at home and extends the team’s win streak in home games to 23 games to rank third in the nation. Overall, FGCU’s 17-game win streak sits as the fourth-best streak in the nation, behind only no. 2\/1 Connecticut, no. 3\/3 Baylor and no. 16\/18 Princeton.<\/p>\n

“I thought in the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half we played really, really well,” said head coach\u00a0Karl Smesko<\/strong>. “We played well defensively, we got good shots on offense. Northern Kentucky is a really good team. For us to play that well over that period of time is really encouraging.”<\/p>\n

Led by 20 points from redshirt-junior\u00a0Whitney Knight (Winston-Salem, N.C.\/R.J. Reynolds High School)<\/strong>, the Eagles saw four double-figure scorers in\u00a0Thursday\u00a0night’s game. Knight sank four long-range shots and pulled down a team-best eight rebounds, while juniorsKaneisha Atwater (Fort Pierce, Fla.\/Fort Pierce Westwood High School\/VCU)\u00a0<\/strong>andStephanie Haas (Avon Lake, Ohio\/Magnificat High School)<\/strong>\u00a0each contributed 13 on the night.\u00a0Taylor Gradinjan (Cudahy, Wisc.\/ Cudahy High School)<\/strong>\u00a0rounded out the scoring efforts with 10 points in 17 minutes.<\/p>\n

Haas’ scoring total was aided by a perfect 9-for-9 outing from the free-throw line. The mark stands as the third-best performance in Eagle history, just two shy of the program record. Haas dished out three of the team’s 18 assists, with\u00a0DyTiesha Dunson (Albany, Ga.\/Westover High School)<\/strong>\u00a0leading the way with six. Eight different Eagles contributed at least one assist as the team produced an assist to turnover ratio of 2.0 with another single-digit turnover performance.<\/p>\n

As a unit, the Eagles shot 44.6 percent from the field with 12 made 3-pointers and an 86.7 percent clip from the free-throw line. FGCU outrebounded NKU 36-32 and held the Norse to a 32.6 percent clip from 3-point range. FGCU also forced 15 miscues for 21 points.<\/p>\n

The Norse jumped out to an early edge to start the contest thanks to a pair 3-pointers and a quick bucket down low but FGCU’s defense forced the Norse into a few tense possessions and created a 10-3 run before the first media timeout. Knight sparked the Eagles with a long shot and a pair of layups and helped FGCU claim its first lead of the contest at\u00a015:34.<\/p>\n

After the first media timeout, NKU earned a pair of free throws, but the Eagles held Northern Kentucky without a field goal for over five minutes as Knight continued her hot streak. Knight used another 3-pointer to nudge FGCU’s advantage to 20-13 midway through the first half.<\/p>\n

NKU cut its scoring drought with a make from beyond the arc but it was quickly negated by a three from\u00a0Jaime Gluesing (Solon, Ohio\/Solon High School)\u00a0<\/strong>from the left side. Atwater followed to increase FGCU’s lead to nine at 25-16 with eight minutes left in the first half.<\/p>\n

Atwater’s field goal opened up a 15-3 run for the Eagles as FGCU charged ahead to open up a 40-19 cushion, its largest of the half.<\/p>\n

Before the first half concluded, NKU combined for a layup and long-range shot to bring the score to 40-24 but Haas capped the half with two more makes from the charity stripe to give FGCU a 42-24 lead at halftime.<\/p>\n

The Eagles stormed out of the break and quickly took complete control of the game. The team mounted a lofty 25-2 run to produce its largest lead of the game, a 41-point advantage at 67-26, near the 11-minute mark of the second half. The team held NKU scoreless for nearly nine minutes and scored 20-straight points over a span of just six minutes.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the scoring streak\u00a0Jenna Cobb (New Holland, Ohio\/Miami Trace High School\/Butler)<\/strong>\u00a0knocked down three trifectas, while Gradinjan and Gluesing also added shots from beyond-the-arc.<\/p>\n

NKU cut its dry spell with a three from the left corner near the midpoint of the half to bring the score of 67-29.Amanda Moore (Seymour, Ind.\/Seymour High School)<\/strong>\u00a0added a layup for the Eagles with nine minutes to play before the Norse challenged the Eagles in the remaining minutes.<\/p>\n

Although the visitors mounted a 17-6 run in the remaining minutes, the Eagle lead was never in jeopardy as the Green and Blue maintained the advantage and ultimately earned the 28-point win.<\/p>\n

With a three-game lead over Stetson in the Atlantic Sun standings, the Eagles now need just two more wins to clinch their fifth-straight Regular Season Championship. The team is back in action\u00a0Saturday, Feb. 14\u00a0with a\u00a07 p.m.\u00a0matchup against Lipscomb at Alico Arena.<\/p>\n

Single-game tickets for all FGCU women’s basketball games are on sale online at<\/em>FGCUAthletics.com<\/em><\/a>, over the phone at\u00a0239-590-7145<\/a>\u00a0or in person at the Alico Arena Box Office.<\/em><\/p>\n

Group sales for women’s basketball games are available for parties of 20 or more at a discounted rate. Beginning this season, groups will receive the opportunity for to upgrade their package to include chairback seats, a PA announcement and a special FGCU group T-Shirt at a cost of $10.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

For up-to-the minute information on the FGCU women’s basketball team, stay tuned to FGCUAthletics.com and follow the official Twitter of FGCU women’s basketball at @FGCU_WBB.<\/em><\/p>\n

Head coach Karl Smesko earned his fourth-consecutive Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year award after a successful 2013-14 campaign. Under his direction, the team completed last season with a record of 26-8, including a 17-1 mark in conference action and won the program’s 300th win last January. Smesko guided the Eagles to their fourth-consecutive regular season championship and went undefeated in the A-Sun Conference tournament to win their second Tournament Championship in three seasons. With 20 wins already in the 2014-15 season, Smesko has guided the Eagles to 11-straight 20+ win seasons. He maintains a record of 336-66 at FGCU for a win percentage of 83.5 with a mark of 126-13 (90.6 W%) in Atlantic Sun contests and has led the team to a 76-1 record in conference play in the last four seasons. The five-time Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year ranks among an elite list of just four active Division I coaches with a career win percentage of .800 or higher. Smesko joins Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, Baylor’s Kim Mulkey and Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer in the esteemed group.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Backed by four double-figure scorers and 12 makes from 3-point range, the FGCU women’s basketball team ran away with a 75-47 victory over Northern Kentucky University Thursday night at Alico… <\/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\/34969"}],"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=34969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}