Dec. 11, 2010

Final Stats

Contact: Greg Murphy

AKRON, Ohio - Shawnita Garland scored 16 points and became the 22nd player in school history to score 1,000 career points, but the Vikings dropped a 73-64 decision at Akron on Saturday afternoon.

The loss drops the Vikings to 6-2, while Akron snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 5-4.

Shalonda Winton finished with 19 points and a career-high 15 rebounds, while Janelle Adams scored 11 points and Takima Keane added 10 points in her first career start.

"It was nice to see Shawnita reach the 1,000 point milestone, but it's unfortunate that we couldn't get a win to go with it," head coach Kate Peterson Abiad said. "I thought we competed well for most of the game, but they had a stretch midway through the second half where they hit two three's, took the lead and held onto it.

Keane was forced into the starting lineup as Honesty King was unable to go after injuring her ankle in practice earlier in the week.

Adams, Garland and Winton played all 40 minutes.

Destinee Blue finished with seven points and 12 rebounds.

Rachel Tecca scored 28 points for Akron, while Taylor Ruper accounted for 24 points, including a 6-for-13 effort from three point.

The first half featured eight ties, including the final one that game with 24 seconds left when an Adams free throw knotted the game at 35-35.

That's how things stayed as the teams headed for the locker room.

After Akron took a one point lead (39-38) with 16:07 left in the game, the Vikings used a 10-2 run to claim a 48-41 lead on a Garland layup with 11:07 left. The layup put her over the 1,000 career point mark.

"I thought we did a nice job with that run to take control of the game at that point," Peterson Abiad said."

Garland and Keane also added a three-pointer apiece in the run.

However, Ruper hit a three-pointer on the next possession and Tecca followed with a pair of baskets to once again even the game at 48-48 with 8:54 left.

The Vikings took their final lead of the contest on a pair of free throws from Keane with 5:33 left that gave CSU a 58-56 advantage.

That's when Ruper took over for the Zips, hitting consecutive three pointers and a pair of free throws over the next two minutes to give Akron a 64-58 lead with 3:32 left.

"Those were a pair of big shots that they hit at that point in the game," Peterson Abiad said.

A Garland three pointer with 2:13 left brought the Vikings within three (66-63), but Tecca answered with two free throws and a layup on the other end to push the Zips lead back to seven (70-63) with just over a minute to play.

The Vikings did hold a 45-28 advantage on the boards, grabbing 17 on the offensive end that they turned into 19 second chance points.

Akron became the first team this season to shoot better than 40-percent against the Vikings, hitting 25-of-61 (.410) from the floor. The Zips hit 8-of-23 (.348) from three point.

CSU shot .407 (24-59) from the floor, hitting 4-for-18 (.222) from three point.