Women's basketball: Army drops heartbreaker at Navy, 61-60

Missy Traversi made her Army-Navy coaching debut on Saturday and it will be memorable for reasons good and bad.

The good was entering Navy’s Alumni Hall and feeling the excitement of a rivalry that dates back through five decades.

The bad was having victory snatched away in the final seconds as Army fell 61-60 in the first of two Patriot League matchups with its chief rival.

“It hurts like hell,’’ Traversi said. “My heart goes out to these players.’’

“That was a heavyweight fight,’’ said Navy second-year coach Tim Taylor. “It just came down to who made the last play.’’

In typical Army-Navy fashion, the contest was close throughout, featuring six lead changes and three ties. Army couldn’t build on an 8-point lead in the second quarter, nor a 3-point edge with six minutes to play.

Up 58-56 and under two minutes, Alisa Fallon fouled Navy’s Jennifer Coleman on a 3-point attempt and the nation’s No. 3 scorer hit all three foul shots for a 59-58 lead with 1:35 to play.

Fallon put Army back on top as she banked a right-handed shot from the right side with 59 seconds remaining. Following a Navy mishandle, Army worked the clock but Kate Murray got jumped by a couple Midshipmen defenders and got off an awkward shot from the left side of the lane. Fallon won the chase for the rebound but her momentum toward the sideline prompted a desperation pass to Hope Brown. However, Brown was suffering the same momentum issue and her attempt to keep the ball inbounds landed on the sideline with 12 seconds remaining.

Army had the ensuing Navy play defended closely. Coleman took a dribble step at the top of the key in an attempt to get free but Murray came flying in to block the 3-pointer. With quick thinking, Navy’s Ciera Hertelendy gathered the loose ball and immediately passed back to Coleman diving through the lane. But instead of taking the ball to the basket, Coleman pushed a pass to Lindsay Llewellyn left open in the low post on the right side and she dropped in the go-ahead basket with four seconds left.

“The end was just like we drew it up,” said Coleman sarcastically. “CC [Hertelendy] did a great job of hustling to the loose ball. She quickly got it to me, I saw a hole and drove towards the basket, but started to lose the ball. I had to change my idea on the fly and got it to Lindsay. She was wide open and knocked it down. That was a great shot by Lindsay. We always tell ourselves to be ready. The ball got to her and she was ready.''

“Those are the kind of shots that I’m super comfortable with,'' Llewellyn said. "I had confidence when it left my hand and luckily it went in. I wasn’t shooting too hot for the start of the game, but I got that one and that’s the one that counted.''

“I commend (Navy),’’ Traversi said. “They made shots when they needed to.’’

Traversi picked Fallon as the go-to person for Army’s final attempt because she was a senior leader. Fallon was a half-step ahead of Coleman as she approached the lane but her instinct was to pivot and she spun right into the double-team from Hertelendy. Fallon awkwardly forced up a shot – a “prayer” as Traversi called it – that found the backboard and the weak-side rebound and putback by Sabria Hunter not only fell away but was too late.

“Fallon makes a really good move on Jen, spins and CiCi’s in the right place,’’ Taylor said. “I trust (Hertelendy) to be in the right spot.’’

“It never comes down to one play,’’ Traversi said. “I thought they battled. I think the game could have gone either way. They had their blunders; we had ours.’’

Traversi pointed to Army’s inability to make shots – the Black Knights shot 32 percent for the game but 27 percent (8-of-30) in the first half.

“We’ve got to make shots,’’ Traversi said. “We’ve got to get in the gym. We’ve got to get more shots up (in practice). It’s not enough to come in here and think we’re going to shoot 50 percent from (3-point range), 40 percent from three. We had a ton of open shots today. We did not make a ton of open shots. We took care of the ball (only 13 turnovers), but we did not make shots.’’

Army won the rebounding battle 49-35 but 20 offensive boards resulted in only 18 second-chance points.

Hunter finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds, Fallon had 11 points and nine boards and Hope Brown had 11 points and seven caroms.

Taylor praised the defensive coverage on Coleman, stating Army was the first team all season that tried denying her the ball. Coleman’s 22 points was only two below her season average but 15 points came after the first half. Sydne Watts scored 16 and Llewellyn added 10 for the Midshipmen.

This was the first time Army (8-8, 3-4 Patriot) had dropped two games in a row since an 0-2 start. The Black Knights had alternated wins and losses for the previous 10 games.

“They need to remember this feeling and they need to channel that,’’ Traversi said of her players. “We all need to channel that into better and there's better to be had and we will find it. It’s not going to get any easier from here. We just have to double down on what we do (in the) fundamentals of basketball.’’

“We had a good game plan but we lost by one point,’’ she added.

Army returns home for three games: Wednesday vs. Lehigh; Saturday vs. Lafayette; and, a Jan. 31 makeup date with Immaculata. Navy visits Army for the annual Star Game on February 12 at 11 a.m.

kmcmillan@th-record.com

Twitter: @KenMcMillanTHR

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Women's basketball: Army fumbles ending in 61-60 loss to rival Navy