Women’s Basketball Blows Lead, Loses to St. Joes

In a game where it looked as if Temple’s Women’s Basketball Team was going get over the hump that has been preventing them from winning games recently, they sputtered a lead toward the end that allowed Saint Joseph’s University to come back and beat them 70-67. Temple led at the end of every quarter, aside from the 4th quarter where they allowed SJU to make its efforts to take the game after trailing behind. Ciara Andrews led the scoring attack in the game for SJU with 27 points, and six assists, while Chelsea Woods added a point-rebound double-double with 20 and 12, and Sarah Fairbanks almost did the same with 10 and 9. On the Temple side, though, Feyonda Fitzgerald reliably led the scoring charge, as she has all season, with 19 points.

Although there were no big runs in the first quarter, Temple jumped out in front and never looked back. There was never any point in the quarter where they trailed, as they scored first and kept packing on more, even while Saint Joseph was still scoring points themselves.

Temple was still decisively in control for the whole 2nd quarter and still never trailed once. By the end of the half, the points were distributed equally by Feyonda Fitzgerald, Tanaya Atkinson, and Alliya Butts with eight apiece, and another seven coming from Donnaizha Fountain. The points were being spread equally, while a majority of Saint Joseph’s points came from Ciara Andrews with 12. Temple led 35-27 at this point, which had been the case for the entire game at this point.

During the third quarter, Temple rose to it’s largest lead of the game, that being 14 points, but by the end of the quarter, both teams scored equally as both teams wound up scoring 19 points.

The 4th quarter is when it all started to break down for Temple, though. Temple held steady for about three minutes in the quarter, but Saint Joseph came fighting back and eventually took their first lead of the game with about three minutes left in the game. After that, it turned into a very back and forth game where both teams were scoring after another to try and retain their lead. However, a turnover at the end of the game was the reason that Temple lost, as there was only six seconds left in the game, and they had to send Ciara Andrews to the free throw line, where she made both of them. It was a valiant effort in what should have been a good make-up game for Temple against the 0-3 Saint Joseph team, but the Owls could not hold on down the stretch.