Dec. 28, 2010

Final Stats

Contact: Greg Murphy

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Shawnita Garland scored a career-high 26 points and added eight rebounds, six steals and a career-high four blocks to lead Cleveland State past Lake Erie, 81-62, in the Vikings final nonconference game of the season on Tuesday night in the Wolstein Center.

Garland, whose previous career-high was 24 points against Valparaiso on Jan. 16, 2010, hit 9-of-19 from the field, including 2-of-4 from three point, and 6-of-7 at the line.

The Vikings snapped a three game losing streak with the win and improved to 7-4, while the Storm fell to 2-6.

Playing at home for the first time in 25 days and in the midst of playing six of eight games on the road, the Vikings extended their home win streak to eight, the second longest streak in school history and one shy of the school record set from 1981-83. In addition, the seven nonleague wins for the Vikings this season are tied for the second most in school history entering league play, one shy of the program record.

Garland's 26 point effort allowed her to move from 21st place to 18th place on the all-time scoring list at CSU with 1,050 points.

Destinee Blue added a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds, while Shalonda Winton and Janelle Adams scored nine points each.

Takima Keane, making her fourth straight start, scored 12 points and dished out five assists.

The Vikings used a tenacious defensive effort to force 31 Storm turnovers which CSU converted into 33 points. The Vikings also made a season-high 17 steals.

"Overall, I was pleased with the effort we gave tonight," head coach Kate Peterson Abiad said. "I think we learned a little bit about this team. We were able to push the ball in transition and get some easy baskets and I feel that we are a better team when we can push the pace. That allows us to open some things up.

"It was good to bounce back with a game like this after losing three straight as we get ready to start league play this weekend. They made some adjustments and took away our running game in the second half so we had to adjust and I thought we were able to do that."

Lake Erie stormed out to a quick 7-0 lead behind five quick points from Jen Caiola and a basket by Brittany Zele. However, the Vikings began to find their groove, scoring seven straight points of their own to knot the game at 7-7 with just over 16 minutes to play.

A three-pointer by Caiola, her second of the game, put the Storm back ahead (10-7), but that's when Garland began to take over. The senior scored eight points as part of a 16-2 run that gave the Vikings a 23-12 lead with 7:13 left in the half.

But it was also on the defensive end of the court where Garland helped to turn the tide, making three steals and blocking a shot as the Vikings picked up their intensity on the defensive end of the court, forcing the Storm into five missed shots and eight turnovers during the run.

Lake Erie was able to slice its deficit back to seven points (28-21) at the 5:18 mark of the first half on another Caiola three pointer, but a three point play by Winton and a Garland jumper pushed the lead back to 12 points (33-21) with 4:25 left and helped spark the Vikings to close the first half on a 17-2 run that sent CSU to the locker room with a 45-23 lead.

The Vikings hit 5-of-6 from three point in the first half as part of a .467 (14-30) shooting effort from the field, while limiting Lake Erie to just 7-of-22 (.318) from the floor in the first stanza.

A Takima Keane layup to open the second half extended the lead to 47-23, the largest lead of the night, just 18 seconds into the second half. The lead was still 19 points (62-43) after a Garland jumper with 8:26 to play, but the Storm scored seven straight points to slice the lead all the way down to 12 (62-50) with seven minutes to play.

Garland answered with a jumper on the other end to push the lead back to 14 points and CSU would see its lead swell to as many as 22 points down the stretch.

"I was hoping we would come out in the second half and have that killer instinct, but we are still kind of lacking that a bit," Peterson Abiad said. "We let them back into it in the second half, but I was happy to see that we were able to respond and get control of the game again. Teams are going to make runs throughout a game and we have to be able to respond like we did tonight."

CSU held a 42-35 advantage on the boards and shot a season-high .500 (7-14) from three point.

The Vikings are back in action on Friday (Dec. 31) when CSU opens play in the Horizon League with a 1:00 p.m. CST (2:00 p.m. in Cleveland) contest at UIC. CSU then plays at Loyola on Sunday (Jan. 2) at 1:00 p.m. CST.