Kennesaw State Women’s Basketball fell 82-56 to No. 24 Florida Gulf Coast University on Thursday, Feb. 23 at the KSU Convocation Center.
Scoring a team-high of 16 points was Jah’Che Whitfield. Whitfield had six of nine in shooting, leading the attack for the offense. Amani Johnson earned nine points and collected five assists.
“Obviously you have a top-25 team coming into your home court, we needed to have a better start than what we did,” Head Coach Octavia Blue said. “I think defensively, we broke down early with a lack of communication and stopping them in transition.”
FGCU began with a quick 10-0 advantage against the Owls while going five for nine in the first four minutes of the game.
KSU responded by scoring eight straight points. Within the eight was a trio of layups from Lyndsey Whilby, Keyarah Berry and Johnson.
Answering the Owls, the Eagles fought back with an 18-4 run, ending the first quarter. FGCU also pushed their lead up to 28-12 during the first five minutes of the second quarter.
KSU made seven of their eight shots while also successfully scoring their final five attempts to lessen the score gap going into halftime. With 1:08 left in the half, the score was 36-27. In the last stretch before closing the first half, Whitfield scored nine points, while Johnson added four. Freshman Laura Toffali collected a mid-range jumper for the Owls as well.
The half concluded after FGCU’s 4-0 run. The Eagles also hit a layup as the clock expired to take a 40-27 lead at halftime.
The Owls shot 50 percent in the first half. KSU was led by Whitfield’s 12 points on five of six shooting.
FGCU intensified its lead to 55-33 following the start of the third quarter during a 15-5 run in the opening five minutes of the half.
Outscoring the Eagles 19-9 in the fourth quarter unfortunately was not enough to hold FGCU. The Eagles notched a 33-point third quarter to outlast the Owls.
“We were down by 40 at one point in this game and one of the things that I talked about to my team throughout the season is being resilient,” Coach Blue said. “That team isn’t 40 points better than us and we need to defend The Nest and play hard the way that we know we can and have some pride about ourselves. We were able to finish the game by just tightening up defensively and winning that fourth quarter by scoring.”
The Owls will travel to Lynchburg, VA to compete in the ASUN Conference Tournament against Jacksonville State on Saturday, March 4 at 4 p.m.
