Women's basketball gets on roll vs. George Mason for 11th win

FAIRFAX, Va. – Brene Moseley watched helplessly near the end of the first half as George Mason's Rahneeka Saunders streaked down the court in the other direction, the guard lying flat on her stomach after diving for the loose ball she had just turned over.

As Saunders pushed the ball ahead to forward Joyous Tharrington under the basket, it looked as though the Patriots finally had the kind of offensive look they had struggled to find all afternoon.

A waiting Tianna Hawkins quelled what little opportunity the Patriots might have had. The forward ferociously blocked Tharrington's shot attempt and sent her tumbling out of bounds, capturing in one play the defensive might the Terps displayed throughout yesterday's game.

With their defense leading the way, the No. 5 Terps cruised to a 78-50 road victory over George Mason in Patriot Center, securing their best start to a season since their national-championship campaign in 2006-07.

"I felt that, watching George Mason, that was how you could be effective and successful," coach Brenda Frese said. "I thought we did just a tremendous job of just mixing it up defensively."

Hawkins' block was one of five the Terps (11-0) had yesterday in one of their better defensive performances of the season. Playing primarily in a zone defense for the first time this season, the team held the Patriots (6-3) to 24 percent shooting from the floor, the Terps' season low. Their 59 rebounds were also a season high.

"We got pretty good looks at the basket, we just didn't hit shots," George Mason coach Jeri Porter said. "We didn't do a particularly good job of getting a second shot. We were relying, literally, on one shot, and if that shot wasn't falling, we were chasing them up the floor."

The Patriots did start the game strong from the field, netting two 3-pointers and three of their first four shots to take an early 8-4 lead. The next 18 minutes, however, were all about their guests.

The Terps closed the half on a 40-12 run, aided largely by a George Mason scoring drought that spanned nearly nine minutes. After making a free throw following the half's second media timeout, the Patriots remained stuck on 13 points until there were less than three minutes left in the first.

"With our matchup zone, we were throwing a lot of different defenders [at them]," Frese said. "We felt like their guard play was very, very strong and we wanted to make it difficult for them to get shots up. Just collectively, as a team, we did a nice job of making them take difficult shots."

The Terps outscored George Mason by just four points in the second half, but by then, the game had already been decided. A 13-1 Patriots run cut their final deficit to just 28 points, a number that could have been much larger had the Terps not been on cruise control for much of the half.

"I take full blame for that," Frese said. "We had some substitution patterns that weren't typical of how we sub and that definitely threw some things off. We got loose with the basketball on the offensive end, and we've got to do a better job in terms of what combinations are out there."

A somewhat complacent second half aside, yesterday's victory marked another milepost in an impressive start to the season that sees the Terps undefeated at the end of the fall semester. With a 17-day break before their next game against Lafayette in the Terrapin Classic, the team will have plenty of time to reflect on its best start since it cut down the nets five seasons ago in Boston.

"We're 11-0, so I think we're pretty happy, but there's always room for improvement," guard Anjale Barrett said. "Just to get back in the lab, get better and go at each other and get that competitiveness before we leave and come back is really good."

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