Box Score ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - After a struggling performance on Wednesday night, Eckerd women's basketball head coach
Paul Honsinger was eager to see how his team would be able to bounce back.
The answer had to be quite pleasing.
The Tritons led for nearly the entire game and used a pair of strong finishes to the middle quarters on the way to a convincing 66-38 win over the University of Tampa on Saturday afternoon in the McArthur Center.
"The biggest thing we talked about since [Wednesday] is that we are playing for us," Honsinger said. "We wanted to see if we were tough enough to bounce back. We knew we could but it was yet to be seen. We had to prove it to ourselves."
Prove it to themselves they did. Shaking off a 24-percent shooting effort from three nights ago, the Tritons (5-2, 3-1 SSC) knocked down 10-of-20 from 3-point range. Three of those triples were part of a 13-1 run that closed the first half and began to change the face of the game.
"Our tempo was good," said Honsinger of what his team did during the run. "We pushed the ball like we wanted. We got some transition baskets and got some good looks without having to work for it in half-court as much."
Tampa (3-5, 0-3 SSC) had rallied from an 11-point deficit to pull back within one at 21-20 with 3:25 left in the second quarter after an Elena de Alfredo 3-pointer.
Margaret Sundberg answered with one of her own, and Eckerd followed by forcing two turnovers that turned into baskets for
Kacie Juday and
Mariam Hannoun.
Victoria Vine then drained a 3-pointer before Sundberg finished it off with another, connecting while falling away from the left corner as the clock neared zeroes.
The Tritons then scored the first five points of the third quarter and closed it on a 9-1 run to outscore UT, 18-7, in the 10-minute stretch.
"I thought the third quarter was the key for us," Honsinger said. "We closed the door on them. We used our last outing to fuel our consistency out of halftime."
Both quarters featured offensive efficiency in Eckerd's final possessions. EC scored on its last five possessions of the second quarter and its last four of the third.
It added up to a 24-point lead by then, and it was well beyond what the Spartans could overcome. Eckerd led by as many as 32 before picking up the comfortable victory.
Though the Tritons shot the ball quite well (46.4 percent), defense was just as key. EC limited Tampa to just 27.8 percent and held Juliana Cavallaro, their leading scorer, without a point on 0-of-7 shooting.
Sundberg led Eckerd with 14 points while
Ashley Folsom added 13 off the bench. Juday narrowly missed a double-double with nine points and 13 rebounds. Vine also had nine points for the Tritons.
Eckerd finishes up its pre-Christmas conference schedule. The Tritons return to action on December 12, traveling to face Claflin (S.C.) University.
