Wednesday Sports Update: Women's basketball tripped up against Houston

By Yan Digilov     1/29/09 6:00pm

The women's basketball team fell to the University of Houston Wednesday night at Tudor Fieldhouse in the first of two back-to-back match-ups between the cross-town rivals. The loss keeps Rice winless in nine conference games, and moves them to 5-11 overall.Freshman Megan Elliot and junior Tara Watts made consecutive three-pointers to start the scoring for Rice and tie the game at six after five minutes of play. Houston then scored five unanswered points before freshman Brianna Hypolite grabbed an offensive rebound to make the score 11-8 with 13:11 left in the first half.

Over the next five minutes, Houston pulled ahead to a ten-point lead, due in large part to the defensive efforts of sophomore center Cobilyn Hill, who finished the game with six blocks.

With six minutes left in the half, Houston began utilizing the full court press. The Owls were able to avoid turnovers and instead countered with reemerging offensive production.

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Freshman center Candace Ashford gave the home team an unexpected boost with a three-pointer, followed immediately with a bucket from under the basket despite considerable defensive pressure to cut the deficit to 28-21. She finished the night with one of her best performances of the year, accumulating nine points and five blocks, despite playing against Hill for most of the night.

"[Hill] was just big," Ashford said. " It was tiring guarding her. I just tried to follow the scouting report. If it came in the paint, I just tried to keep it out."

As time ran out in the first 20 minutes of play, senior Maudess Fulton, who has upped her offensive production in recent weeks, also came up with big scores to give the Owls their final points of the half.

After a pull-up jumper from Fulton brought the score to 32-25, it appeared as though the Cougars would take the final shot of the half following an offensive rebound. But the Owls took over the ball with 25 seconds left after Houston lost the ball out-of-bounds. Fulton made a free throw after being fouled on a lay up to close the half at 32-26.

The game became more exciting in the second half as soon as Ashford made a block on a Hill's shot in the first possession. The Owls' scoring started just as it did in the first half with a three-pointer from freshman D'Frantz Smart. The home team continued to make ground on the deficit and a Fulton three-pointer made it a two-point game four minutes into the half.

Then, the crowd erupted after Ashford made another big block, and the Owls came back with a four-on-one run to tie the game off a Fulton lay up. The game turned into a back-and-forth scoring battle, and the score remained tied at 42 with approximately 13:00 left to play.

After Houston amassed a five-point, 51-46, lead with eight minutes left, Ashford dropped in another bucket and cut the lead to three. Though the tendency to meltdown at the start of the second half evaded the Owls, they were not able to maintain the offensive production as the game drew to an end.

From there, Houston took off and finished the remaining six minutes of the game with a 15-3 run. The home team finished the night with a 66-56 loss.

"We are really struggling to shoot the basketball," head coach Greg Williams said. "We battled back, came out in the second half to tie the game, and we just can't seem to sustain anything.I am proud of Candace Ashford. I thought she did a really good job."

The rivals will meet again on Saturday at Houston's Hofheinz Pavilion at 5 p.m. for part-two of the cross-town saga.

"I definitely feel like we can beat them," Fulton said. "If we can just shoot better, continue to play good defense, and keep our turnovers down, I think we can beat them."

Ashford mimicked her sentiments.

"We have the right mentality," she said. "We know what we can do. We know what they can do, so now we just have to go out there, play hard and get the win on Saturday.

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