Cold-shooting Monarchs fall, settle for No. 4 seed in Sun Belt tourney
NORFOLK — Peyton McDaniel poured in a game-high 21 points and Newport News native Annalicia Goodman chipped in 14 as James Madison thumped Old Dominion 70-58 in a Sun Belt women’s basketball game Friday night at Chartway Arena.
Goodman, a former Heritage High standout, also pulled down nine rebounds for the Dukes (21-10, 13-5), who finished third in the conference.
The Monarchs (21-8, 12-6) shot a dismal 20 of 80 from the floor — their second-lowest percentage of the season. They shot 21% in the second game of the season in a 59-48 win over Buffalo in the opening round of the MEAC-Sun Belt Conference Challenge back in November.
“Tonight is one of those nights where the iron was unkind,” Old Dominion coach DeLisha Milton-Jones said. “We did not see the ball go through the basket enough, especially when you have 80 possessions. We had 21 more than our opponent — just not good enough.”
Brenda Fontana led the Monarchs with 14 points, followed by Kaye Clark with 12. Both were among the nine players highlighted after the game as the team celebrated Senior Night.
James Madison finished with a 54-47 edge in rebounds and went 15 of 19 from the foul line, converting one more than the Lady Monarchs despite two fewer opportunities.
“We were outrebounded,” Milton-Jones said. “We got to the free-throw line, but didn’t capitalize off of it.
“I felt that it was a lot of things that we did to ourselves. We didn’t convert off of 22 turnovers. It was just an ugly game for us on both ends of the floor.”
The teams went back and forth in the first quarter until James Madison stretched the lead to 25-15 on the heels of a 7-0 run to end the period.
Halima Salat drilled a trey to pull the Lady Monarchs to within six points midway through the second quarter at 30-24, which delivered a roar from the crowd of 4,342. It would be the closest they would get to James Madison the rest of the game. Following a Clark floater in the lane midway through the third quarter, James Madison went on a 12-0 run to put the game away — a stretch that was only stalled by an ODU timeout.
“I was trying to conjure up a different type of energy,” MiltonJones said. “I didn’t like the body language or what I was feeling. And it showed in their play on the court. I felt too many players went inward and they were disappointed in something that happened in the first quarter. This game is too fast for us to hold on to something that happened in the past.”
The Lady Monarchs finished as the fourth seed in the Sun Belt Conference and next plays at 2 p.m. Friday in the tournament quarterfinals. They await the winner of the first-round matchup between No. 5 Louisiana Monroe and the winner of Georgia Southern-Texas State play-in game.
For now, Old Dominion will look to move on from a loss in their final regular-season game.
“I don’t know if you put it behind you; you really have to take a hard look at yourself,” MiltonJones said. “It was a gift in an odd way. We need to look at it because it exposed something within us — whether it’s the zone defense, whether it’s our mentality toward it, whether it’s holes within our defense with the way they were attacking us. I would rather see it now, so we can use it as fuel and tactics going into conference tournament time.”