PHILADELPHIA — While the men’s team faced a close loss at the hands of Iowa yesterday, Temple’s women’s basketball team was able to advance in the WNIT with a 74-66 win over in state rival, Drexel. Alliya Butts and Feyonda Fitzgerald combined for 43 points and nine assists, while Erica Covile had a point-rebound double double with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and Tanaya Atkinson almost had one with nine points and 10 rebounds. A major key in Temple’s win was the fact that they took and made more free throws than Drexel. While Drexel never missed a free throw, going 8-8, Temple took 26 and made 17, which happened to be the biggest difference in the game. In fact, the only stats that Temple had an advantage in were rebounds and field goal percentage, but they only made one more field goal altogether. After winning this game, they will be headed to face Quinnipiac the second time this year, after a two point loss the first time, in the second round of the tournament.
The first quarter started off pretty even, but in the last five minutes of the quarter, Temple went on a 11-5 run to build a 16-10 lead to end the quarter.
In the second quarter, Drexel fought back and held a seven point lead with about two and a half minutes left in the quarter after a 21-8 run. Temple was able to even things back up at 31 by the time the quarter ended. Sarrah Curran of Drexel lead all scorers at halftime with 16 points, and Alliya Butts lead Temple with 10 points. Temple seemed to be getting more people involved, however, as six of their seven players had scored while Drexel only had two people on the board at the time.
Neither team held a huge lead in the third quarter as they were continuously going back and forth with lead changes throughout the quarter. Temple wound up with the upper hand by the end of the quarter, though, as they held a three point lead at 55-52.
Drexel held a three point lead with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, but Temple erased any thought that Drexel was going to win this game by completely dominating the game for the rest of the quarter. For six minutes, Temple went on a 13-2 run, which gave them an eight point lead with about two and half minutes left that Drexel was never able to overcome.
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