By Mason Wittner, Staff Writer
Sophomore Aaeron Smith and junior Karly Frye each had career days en route to Kennesaw State’s 64-52 win over North Florida Saturday.
KSU (16-9, 5-5) dominated the game the game for the entirety of the second half, never surrendering their lead. The Owls allowed UNF (10-15, 1-9) to pull with 10 at 55-45 with 5:43 to go, but used 9-2 run to pull away and lead 64-47 with 60 seconds left in the game.
Smith led four Owls in double-figures with a career-high 19 points on 5-for-8 shooting. Frye surpassed her career-high as well, contributing 13 points.
Jasmine McAllister and Kristina Wells rounded out the Owls top scorers with 13 and 12 points respectively, grabbing seven rebounds each.
The victory marked the sixteenth win of the season for the Owls, the most wins since they posted a 16-12 record in their 2007-08 campaign.
“I didn’t even really know that,” KSU head coach Nitra Perry said of the win total. “We’ve just been going game-by-game, but the team is definitely maturing in the wins and the losses, which is all I can ask for. They have never stopped giving one hundred-percent effort. We feel like that’s one thing we can control; our effort.”
KSU won the battle of the boards, out-rebounding the Ospreys 34-28. The Owls also shot 81-percent from the free throw line, going 13-16.
The Owls were forced to battle early on; falling behind 7-3 and taking the lead 8-7 at the 15:03 mark in the first half.
KSU built up a four-point lead, until a 7-0 run gave the Ospreys a 14-11 edge 9:12 to go in the opening half.
Trailing 21-19, a three from Smith sparked a 10-0 to close out the half at the Owls lead 29-21 at the break.
“I thought we had a balanced attack tonight with four girls in double figures,” Perry said. “Aaeron Smith came off the bench for us and scored 19 points in 26 minutes. Jasmine had 13, Kristina had 13, and Frye had 12. I thought we did a better job boxing out down low and shooting free throws, something we struggled with in the Jacksonville loss.”
The Owls will look to pick up their seventeenth win for the first time since joining the Atlantic Sun Conference as they host Florida Gulf Coast (23-2, 10-0) Thursday.
