Women’s Basketball Takes a Nail-Biter at Dayton, 61-57

Sunday, January 15

Dayton, Ohio

2:00 PM

Temple University

8-8, 2-1 A-10

Dayton

10-5, 2-1 A-10

Temple

Dayton

Shey Peddy scored a game-high 21 points to lead the Owls to the win

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Women’s Basketball Takes a Nail-Biter at Dayton, 61-57

1.15.12 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Owls led by Shey Peddy with 21 points and eight rebounds

Box Score

DAYTON, Ohio – It was a nail-biter in the final minutes, but Temple women's basketball held tough in front of a Dayton crowd of 2,509 and got a 61-57 win against the Flyers on Sunday afternoon. The Owls (8-8, 2-1) were led by Shey Peddy with 21 points and Victoria Macaulay with 11 boards.

Dayton (10-5, 2-1) got a team-high 15 points from Patrice Lalor who scored all of them in a big second half for the Flyers. Temple led by 10 at halftime but Dayton came all the way back briefly took its only lead of the game with just 5:37 remaining.

Brittany Lewis scored 13 points for Temple and Kristen McCarthy added 11 points along with a game-best five steals. Peddy added eight rebounds to her 21 points, and BJ Williams led all players with eight assists.

Temple made five of its first eight shots along with 2-of-2 at the line to race out to an early 13-4 lead. Back-to-back fastbreak layups for Williams and Peddy gave the Owls their first double-digit lead, 19-9 at the 11-minute mark of the half.

The Flyers used a 5-0 run to cut the margin to five, but they would come no closer the rest of the half. Temple once more led by 10 after a 7-2 run that started with Peddy's second three-pointer, and the Owls went on to still lead by 10 at the break, 32-22.

Temple out-shot Dayton 42.4 percent to 26.7 percent from the field in the first half, and recorded five steals to the Flyers' five. Peddy led all players with 10 at halftime.

It took a few minutes for the shots to start falling for the Owls in the second half, while Dayton came out strong and cut Temple's lead to just four, 32-28 less than three minutes in.

The Owls continued to struggle offensively compared to their first-half performance, but stayed strong on the glass and aggressive on defense. Temple went back up by eight on a couple of occasions but the Flyers stayed within striking distance.

With Dayton knocking on the door and once again within five, 45-40 near the midway point, Monaye Merritt helped preserve Temple's lead by sinking jumpers on back-to-back possessions.

The crowd became a factor in support of the Flyers, leading to a shot-clock violation for Temple with seven minutes remaining. On the next possession Dayton's Lalor cut the margin to one, and Justine Raterman then gave her team its first lead of the game, 50-49, capping an 8-0 run.

Peddy helped quiet the crowd by scoring on consecutive possessions including her third trey as Temple regained a four-point lead.

Neither team scored for over two minutes until McCarthy widened the margin to six with a layup at 2:27. Lalor answered with her first three-pointer of the game for Dayton, and the teams continued to trade buckets for the next two possessions.

With 26 seconds remaining a jumper from Lalor cut the gap to just a point, 58-57, and Dayton fouled Peddy and sent her to the line with 16 seconds to go. She made both ends of the 1-and-1 for a three-point cushion.

Williams forced a turnover on the Flyers, who immediately fouled McCarthy. She hit one more at the line and Dayton was unable to get off a shot on its final possession of the game.

The Owls will be back in action at home on Wednesday, Jan. 18 to face Duquesne at 4:00 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the Temple men's team in the Liacouras Center.