March 5, 2009
Box Score
PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - After a tough conference road loss against Coppin State last Saturday, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) women's basketball team rebounded and showed they are a team to be reckoned with in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), as they downed Delaware State University (DSU) 55-52 on senior day in the William P. Hytche Athletic Center Thursday night.
Tiffany Reid (Philadelphia, Pa.) led the Lady Hawks with 18 points, just one away from her season high. April McBride (New Rochelle, N.Y.) finished with a game-high 10 rebounds adding eight points to the night.
Great efforts for UMES came off the bench in freshman Kanzes Battin (Wilmington, Del.), Adobi Agbasi (Columbus, Ga.) and Amber Cook (Greensboro, N.C.). Battin and Agbasi finished with seven points each, while Cook had a game and career-high six assists and a team-high two steals.
UMES (14-13, 10-6 MEAC) held the Lady Hornets scoreless for over four minutes in the first half to go on a 9-0 run. They led by as much as 15 points with less than two minutes to go before the break, shooting an amazing 70 percent from the floor.
"Hopefully we can continue shooting better," said Head Coach Fred Batchelor. "We have to take that first half down to Winston[-Salem] and spread it out over the course of a game."
DSU (15-14) would claw back into the game with just over a minute and half to play. Keyhana Wakefield hit a layup to put the Lady Hornets down by two, 52-50 with 1:42 on the clock. Reid made two free throws to extend the Lady Hawks lead to four.
McBride dropped the first of two shots from the charity stripe with a minute left in competition to close out scoring for UMES and put the score 55-50. Another layup by Wakefield with 54 seconds to play was not enough as the Lady Hornets fell to 11-5 in the MEAC.
DSU's Wakefield tied a career-high finishing with a game-high 19 points. Freshman Sonia Johnson added 12 points to the mix as the only other Lady Hornet to hit double-digits.
With the regular season at its end, UMES is now preparing to head to the MEAC Championships having taken down the number two team in the conference. Championships are set for March 9-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C. UMES will be broadcasting all of its games live on the internet at umeshawks.com.
