By: KSU Sports Information
Postgame Notes
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Kennesaw State women’s basketball team got a career-high 19 points from freshman
Kristina Wells, but it wasn’t enough as its four-game winning streak came to an end with a 64-56 loss to North Florida on Saturday evening.
The loss drops the Lady Owls to 13-14 (8-8 A-Sun) on the season, while the win improves the Ospreys to 12-16 (9-8 A-Sun) for the year. As a result of the game the two teams now switch places in the conference standings with UNF moving up to fourth and KSU falling down to fifth place.
The Lady Owls offense was out of sync to start the game as a mixture of missed layups and turnovers helped North Florida jump out to an early 15-5 lead. As the first half went on KSU continued to struggle on the offensive end of the floor as it missed 12 of its first 14 shots from the field. A three-pointer by redshirt-freshman
Taylor Mills broke a nine minute scoring drought for Kennesaw State to make the score 21-8 with 6:38 left in the first half.
KSU did close out the half strong using a 10-2 run to cut the UNF lead down to 35-20 heading into the locker room. Sophomore
Elaina Gray was key during the Lady Owls late first half run as she provided a much needed lift scoring six points, to go along with two rebounds.
As the Lady Owls came back out onto the floor to start the second half you could see the level of intensity on all the players faces as they felt they were still in the game. That intensity carried over into KSU’s play as it started the period on an 8-1 run to make the score 36-30. However, that is the closest Kennesaw State would get as North Florida countered right back with a backbreaking 13-5 run to push their lead back up to 14.
Kennesaw State got as close as 56-46 after a Wells jumper with 5:42 remaining, but couldn’t make a late comeback eventually falling by eight.
Head Coach
Colby Tilley was disappointed with the result, but he knows his team played hard. “We dug ourselves into a big hole early as we didn’t execute very well on the offensive end of the floor,” coach Tilley said. “I liked our effort and intensity, especially in the second half, but we just ran out of gas towards the end as we expended so much energy trying to get back into the game. We will learn from this game as we start to prepare for Belmont this week.”
Not only did Wells score a career-high 19 points, but she also chipped in with four rebounds and a career-high six steals. Junior
Lisa Capellan had a nice game as well for KSU finishing with six points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Kennesaw State comes back home for its final two games of the regular season starting on Thursday night as it hosts Belmont at 4:45 p.m. Thursday will also be Faculty/Staff Appreciation Night as any KSU employee can bring a guest to the game for free.
