UNF women’s basketball delivered a steady performance Saturday night as they completed a sweep of their four game homestand, 61-56 over Belmont.
UNF coach Mary Tappemeyer was pleased with the Ospreys effort on the boards, as they outrebounded Belmont for the game 40 to 31. “They’re a good shooting team, so we wanted to rebound well so we can get out and run, and when we do that we’re a little bit better,” Tappemeyer said
Sophomore forward Taylor Smith led the way for UNF with 15 points, and her frontcourt mate, sophomore Larkira Jones was a force down low, with 15 rebounds and six blocks.
“They were big tonight,” Tappemeyer said about her starting forwards. “They are two young post players, so there are still things to work on, but they did well tonight.”
After Bruins freshman Molly Ernst opened the Bruins scoring with a three, and then stretched their lead to three, Juliemay Syquio tied the score with UNF’s first three of the game. The Ospreys never looked back, as they took a 10-5 lead to the first media timeout, and never trailed again. UNF led 40-30 at the half.
Junior guard Brittany Kirkland added 13 points and sophomore guard Jadhken Kerr also scored in double figures with 11.
UNF had a 47-35 lead with 13:40 left after Smith put in an old fashioned three point play, but that woud be the last field goal UNF would score for over four minutes. Smith left the game for a breather, and Belmont went on to score eight straight to close the gap to five, 48-43 with 8:59 left.
But Smith was never worried that UNF might be losing control of the game.
“We’ve been working on late game situations a lot lately, and we’ve learned lessons from playing with the lead against big teams,” Smith said.
Needless to say, when Smith did re-enter the game, she immediately scored, ending the Ospreys scoring drought.
Belmont again closed the gap, this time to within four, 57-53, with 1:10 left in the game, but big rebounding by Jones and solid free throw shooting down the stretch closed out the game for the Ospreys.
The win completes a four game sweep on this homestand, but coach Tappemeyer is looking forward rather than back.
“We have JU on Tuesday at their place, we handled them well here, but it’s going to be a different atmosphere there. We’re looking forward to it,” Tappemeyer said.
