BOX SCORE (.html)
BOX SCORE (.pdf)
CINCINNATI, Ohio The Seton Hall women’s basketball team ran into a hot-shooting Cincinnati team on Saturday night at Fifth Third Arena, falling 72-62 as its two-game winning streak came to a halt. The Pirates (13-4, 2-3) are back in action on Tuesday night when they host Pittsburgh at 7:00 p.m.
Senior Noteisha Womack (Washington, D.C.) led the Hall with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore Ebonie Williams (Hagerstown, Md.) had a team-high 21 points.
Shanasa Sanders paced the Bearcats (13-4, 3-1) with 25 points, while Kahla Roudebush added 20. Cincinnati hit 12 3-pointers in 26 attempts, the most made this season against Seton Hall.
The Pirates jumped out to an 8-3 lead with 16:56 left after Womack’s second bucket of the game on the inside. Cincinnati responded with its second and third 3-pointers of the game, hit by Shanasa Sanders and Kahla Roudebush, to grab a 9-8 advantage at the first media timeout.
Sanders continued the Bearcats’ early barrage from beyond the arc with two more bombs, giving Cincinnati a 19-18 lead with 11:27 on the clock. Seton Hall quickly answered with six straight, four coming from Womack, to regain the lead two minutes later. Williams later knocked down a triple for the Pirates, followed by a jumper from freshman Shanai Heber (Paterson, N.J.) and a pair of free throws by classmate Kandice Green (Washington, D.C.) as SHU took a 31-23 lead with 5:41 remaining.
Jill Stephens broke a scoreless drought of over four minutes for Cincinnati with a layup at the 1:20 mark, cutting the Pirates’ lead to 35-28, and the lead would remain at seven going into halftime, 37-30. Womack had 14 points and seven boards in the first half.
A 3-pointer by Roudebush tied the game at 40 just over three minutes in, and Sanders gave the Bearcats a 42-40 lead with a floater in the lane at the 15:39 mark to cap a 12-3 spurt. Williams broke the spell with a jumper for the Hall, but Sanders and Shelly Bellman drilled consecutive trifectas to put Cincinnati ahead by six.
A tough fadeway by Sanders with 8:15 to play made it 54-48 as the Bearcats maintained a small cushion. But the Pirates finally regained momentum, as a 3-point play by Womack and a steal and layup from Williams highlighted an 8-2 run that evened the score at 56 with 5:45 left.
Angel Morgan countered with a 3-pointer, followed by two free throws from Bellman as Cincinnati went up by five with 3:58 on the clock. After the Hall got back to within two, Bellman found the bottom of the net once again from beyond the arc, making it 65-60 with two and a half minutes remaining.
Bellman just beat the shot clock with a minute to go with a leaner in the lane, giving the Bearcats a 67-62 lead. The Pirates came up empty on the offensive end in the final minute, and Cincinnati iced the game at the free throw line to win by double figures.
Seton Hall hit just 35.7 percent from the floor, while Cincinnati finished at 42.1 percent. The Pirates hit 18-of-19 free throw attempts.
