Dec. 1, 2007

Final Stats

Contact: Greg Murphy

OXFORD, Ohio - Cleveland State junior Dominique Butler tied her career-high with 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting from the floor, but the Vikings dropped an 89-71 nonconference decision at Miami (Ohio) on Saturday afternoon in Millett Hall.

Butler's effort equaled the second best shooting performance in CSU history, trailing only Amy Dirksen's 10-of-11 (.909) effort against Chicago State on Nov. 22, 1997. Butler equaled Kim Brockway's 9-of-10 performance against Belmont on Jan. 6, 2001.

"We've been asking Dominique to be more of a scorer and she really responded tonight," head coach Kate Peterson Abiad said. "She did a real nice job of taking the ball to the basket and we really need her to keep being a significant scorer for us.

"I was disappointed that we gave up 89 points tonight," Peterson Abiad continued. "We are a good defensive team and that is out of character for us. We have a stretch of games coming up that we can build some nice momentum off of. We need to put it all together and continue to improve as a team."

Kailey Klein finished with 17 points and five assists, while Brittany Korth chipped in 13. Natalie Miller finished with three points and grabbed a career-high nine boards. The Vikings shot .509 (27-53) from the field, including .400 (6-15) from three-point.

Amanda Jackson led the RedHawks with a game-best 29 points, while Jenna Schone (19), Briana Dunlap (14) and Ashleigh Brown (10) also reached double digits. Laura Markwood tallied a game-high 13 rebounds for Miami (Ohio), which shot .492 (31-63) from the floor, including 12-of-27 (.444) from three-point land.

The Vikings raced out to a 13-4 lead over the first five minutes of the contest and pushed the lead to 10 points (22-12) on a Shawnita Garland layup with 11:17 to play. However, the RedHawks used a 16-3 run to take their first lead of the game on a three-pointer by Amanda Jackson with 6:51 to play. Schone hit a pair of three-pointers during the run for the RedHawks.

The Miami (Ohio) lead was three points (39-36) at the half.

CSU took its first and only lead of the second half with 16:04 to play as a layup from Butler gave the Vikings a 46-44 lead. But the RedHawks would go on a 21-4 run over the next seven minutes to assume a 65-50 lead and never looked back.

The run was highlighted by three RedHawk three-pointers, including two from Dunlap who finished 4-of-5 from beyond the arc.

The Vikings will return to action on Tuesday night when they travel to IUPUI for a 7:00 p.m. game.