Jan. 24, 2010

Box Score

Burlington, Vt. - Stony Brook University's women's basketball team dropped its road contest with Vermont, 67-45, in Patrick Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon. Junior Kirsten Jeter (Elmont, N.Y.) led the Seawolves with 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting. With the loss, Stony Brook falls to 5-14 (3-4 America East) while Vermont moves to 16-4 (6-1 America East).

"At times we played really well defensively we just couldn't get our offense going today," said head coach Michele Cherry. "I liked the effort we put in, we just had too many turnovers and not enough shots. We're going to need better perimeter shooting moving forward."

Behind a strong defensive effort that held the highest scoring team in the conference to just 18% shooting, Stony Brook jumped out to a 12-7 lead on a baseline jumper from senior Joia Daniels (Silver Spring, Md.) with 13:06 remaining. A four-minute scoreless streak by the Seawolves opened the door for the Catamounts, however, who used an 8-0 run to move in front 15-12.

Trailing by four with 6:13 left, freshman Gerda Gatling (Woodbridge, Va.) corralled an offensive rebound for an easy putback to pull SBU within two at 20-18. On the Catamounts next possession, junior Kirsten Jeter (Elmont, N.Y.) intercepted a pass at the top of the key and took it all the way in for a game-tying layin.

With momentum leaning Stony Brook's way, Vermont's Courtnay Pilypaitis nailed a deep three as the shot clock expired which sparked Vermont's offense. UVM finished the half off on a 12-2 run to take a ten point lead into intermission.

Vermont's scoring duo of Pilypaitis and May Kotsopoulos would record the first 15 points of the half for the Catamounts as they extended their lead to 23 with 14:01 remaining. A jumper in the paint by Jeter at 12:29 would snap a 13-0 streak by the Catamounts and put the score at 47-26.

Despite nine second-half points from Jeter, SBU could only cut the Catamounts advantage to 18, due in large part to the outside shooting of the Catamounts. Vermont shot 44% from beyond the arc and connected on four of its seven attempts in the second half. Jeter finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and four steals to earn America East Player of the Game honors for Stony Brook, while Pilypaitis earned the honor for Vermont with a game-high 21 points.

Stony Brook plays its second road contest in a row when it travels to Baltimore, Maryland to take on UMBC on Thursday. Tip is set for 7:00 p.m.