Season Ends for Women's Basketball with 74-66 Loss to Temple

Friday, March 18

Daskalakis Athletic Center

7:00 p.m.

Drexel University

19-14

Temple

21-11

Temple

Drexel

Photo by: Ryan Samson

Season Ends for Women's Basketball with 74-66 Loss to Temple

3/18/2016 9:53:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA – The Drexel women's basketball team saw its season come to a close on Friday night as the Dragons fell to Temple in the first round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament, 74-66. Drexel hit a wall late in the game as the Dragons could not keep up with the fast-paced Owls in the game's final minutes.

Sarah Curran finished her junior season with one of her best performances of the year, scoring 24 points while going 10-for-20 from the floor and 4-for-5 from long range. Jessica Pellechio, also a junior, netted 11 points for the Dragons (19-14), and junior Alexis Smith added 10 points and a team-high five rebounds. Redshirt-junior Meghan Creighton dished out seven assists and came up with a pair of steals to go along with her two points. Sara Woods, a sophomore, added six points and four rebounds off the bench in an impressive performance.

Seniors Rachel Pearson, Jackie Schluth and Carrie Alexander saw their careers come to a close with the loss to the Owls. Pearson, who was the Dragons' active scoring leader through the season, finished with nine points and three assists to close her career with 1,136 points, 16th-most all time at Drexel. She hit a three-pointer against Temple, leaving her with 251 for her career, third most in Drexel history and ninth-most in Colonial Athletic Association history. Schluth, who endured multiple knee injuries to become a reliable starter for the past two years, finished her six years in University City with 86 career blocks, fourth-most in program history. She had two points, four rebounds and two assists on Friday. Alexander, whose 100th career game was played in the CAA championship game against James Madison, was sidelined on Friday due to an injury suffered in practice earlier this week.

The Dragons went toe-to-toe with the Owls for most of Friday's game, playing at a fast pace against a Temple team which was one of the first left out of the NCAA Tournament field. Drexel hit 10 of its first 12 three-point attempts before failing to connect on its last four, finishing with a still impressive .625 mark from long range on the evening.

Temple, which was led by sophomore Alliya Butts' 24 points, held a 16-10 lead after the first quarter, but the Dragons stormed back in the second. Alexis Smith and Jessica Pellechio knocked down three-pointers on consecutive possessions that pulled Drexel within a bucket, and Sara Woods evened the score with her jumper with 7:08 to play before halftime. After the Owls edged back in front, Sarah Curran gave Drexel the lead with a three-pointer, following that up with five more points for a personal 8-0 run that put Drexel ahead 26-20 with 3:54 to play before intermission.

Another Curran three-pointer with 2:25 remaining put the Dragons up by seven, 31-24, which would prove to be their largest lead of the game. Temple closed the half on a 7-0 run, though, to pull even at the break.

Though the Owls began to assert themselves on the glass in the third quarter, Drexel's hot shooting kept the team in it. Temple scored the first points of the second half, but the Dragons promptly rattled off seven straight, with Rachel Pearson contributing the first four and Pellechio connecting on another trey to hand the Dragons a 38-33 edge. A pair of Meghan Creighton free throws and another bucket from Curran left the Dragons holding a 42-36 lead with 6:31 to play, but the Owls responded with five straight of their own to get back within a point. Butts' three-pointer with 4:12 to play in the third quarter knotted the game at 44 apiece, and the margin would get no larger than three the rest of the third quarter.

Trailing by three heading into the fourth, the Dragons opened the final period with consecutive threes from Pellechio and Pearson to claim a 58-55 edge. After that, though, the Dragons would experience their first scoring drought of the game. Drexel was held off the scoreboard for nearly three minutes as the Owls pushed out to an 8-0 run that left them ahead by five with 5:50 remaining. Woods connected on a jumper that cut the deficit to three, but the relentless Owls kept pushing tempo and the Dragons found themselves finally unable to keep up. Temple missed nine free throws that could have helped the Owls push their lead further, but the eight-point final margin would end up matching their biggest lead of the evening.

Drexel remains winless in the brief series with the Owls. Despite the proximity of the teams, they have played just two times prior to Friday in the Division I history of the teams. Temple had won both, in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. The Owls will advance to play Quinnipiac, which defeated Maine in its first-round WNIT game, on Sunday in Connecticut.