Something had to give.
The Terrapin women's basketball team and James Madison went back and forth at Comcast Center for the majority of last night's game, trading basket for basket and knocking down jumper after jumper.
Defensive stops were largely absent throughout, but the No. 11 Terps used a 14-0 run over 3:54 just past the midway point of the second half to outlast the Dukes for a 90-76 win.
Both teams started the second half by scoring on their first three possessions, including a layup and three-pointer by Dukes guard Dawn Evans, who led all scorers with 33 points. Evans scored seven of the Dukes' first 10 second-half points to give JMU a 44-43 lead with 17:33 left and almost single-handedly kept her team in the game.
"Evans is a tremendous player," Terp coach Brenda Frese said. "She's a lightning-quick, big-time scorer. We're disappointed, obviously - she came into the game averaging 28.5, and she gets 33 off of us. But hats off to her."
The Terps' Kristi Toliver, who played pick-up ball with Evans during the summer in Harrisonburg, Va., the senior guard's hometown and the location of JMU, had quite the offensive performance of her own.
Tied at 57 with 11:31 remaining, Toliver hit a driving layup for a lead the Terps wouldn't relinquish. The guard, who scored a combined 19 points in the team's first two games and played just 15 minutes in Sunday's win against Delaware State because of early foul trouble, led the team with 27.
After the game, she took objection to the suggestion she started the season in a slump and said she and her teammates were steadily improving from their season-opening loss last Friday at Texas Christian.
"No, I think today we came out with a lot of energy and were extremely motivated," Toliver said. "We knew that first game we didn't go so well; the second game, we got better. I think today we got better, and that's what I think we're just going to continue to do."
While they executed much better in the second half, the Terps (2-1) began the first half with the same type of sloppy play they exhibited in their first two games. They committed 13 turnovers and allowed 10 Dukes offensive rebounds in the first half.
"A lot of travel calls - I think that's what hurt us," Frese said. "The stat I'm most proud of us is the second half, only three turnovers. If we can play those kind of halves from the offensive end, have that kind of offensive execution, we're gonna be able to do some great things."
Tied at 19 with 9:52 remaining in the first half, the Terps went on a 10-3 run over 3:45 to take a 29-22 lead. But Evans and the Dukes wouldn't go away, even taking a brief 34-33 lead with 27 seconds left in the half. Toliver hit a jumper with 4 seconds left to give the Terps a one-point advantage at halftime.
From that point, the Dukes stayed close until the Terps turned on the defense with 9:42 left and didn't allow a point for almost four minutes.
"That's what we've been talking about," Frese said. "Having runs of our own on the defensive end and being able to build on it and have momentum. Defense is an attitude; it's a mentality. I'm just really excited to see the focus. I thought we made big strides today, and now the challenge is for us to put back-to-back halves together."
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