Riding the streaks
Women’s hoops wins 9th straight, 22nd at home
By Brian Hansen, sports editor
Posted on January 29, 2007

In front of the second largest crowd in JMU women’s basketball history, the Dukes (17-2 overall, 9-0 Colonial Athletic Association) won their ninth straight game overall and 22nd straight game at home, 73-59 over Hofstra (15-5, 5-4) Sunday.

The crowd of 5,294 people watched as JMU defeated the Pride in the second of three consecutive games against their top competition in the CAA.

The record attendance for a women’s home game is 6,500 which was set on Jan. 17, 1997 against ODU.

“We did not play our best basketball tonight,” JMU coach Kenny Brooks said. “But, when you don’t play your best basketball and you come away with a 14-point victory over a very good team, it goes to show the abilities that you have.”

Junior forward Tamera Young who had 27 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals led the Dukes in a game that was marked by sloppy play and lots of fouls.

“The refs called a lot of fouls and that slowed the momentum of the game down,” senior point guard Andrea Benvenuto said. “That takes away from what we want to do which is grab the ball and go.”

Young shot 10-for-19 from the floor, while capitalizing on a Hofstra defense the appeared focused on taking Dukes center and leading scorer Meredith Alexis out of the game.

“We were in the 2-3 [zone] and we were there on Tamera, but we just didn’t close out all the way,” Hofstra coach and former JMU assistant coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey said. “She was able to capitalize on that and get in the lane and score some points.”

The game had promise of being a showdown between two of the better post players in the league, with Alexis and Pride center Vanessa Gidden matching up, but foul trouble forced both players into more of a conservative role in the game.

“There were situations where we didn’t give Meredith a fair shot,” Brooks said. “We’d look inside and see that they were backing into their zone, and we just didn’t try to get the ball inside.”

Alexis finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds extending her JMU record to 55 career double-doubles. Gidden had 10 points and four rebounds for Hofstra.

The Dukes will finish up a three game home stand on Thursday when the play host to Old Dominion in a showdown of the top-two teams in the CAA.  Both teams sit undefeated in conference and the game will be a rematch of last year’s CAA final.

“When you play a team like Old Dominion you need to be hitting on all cylinders,” Brooks said. “Until someone can step up and knock them off, they are still the champions.”