BOCA RATON, Fla. - Despite leading at halftime, the Lady Wildcats fell to Florida Atlantic in the final non-conference tilt of the season, Thursday night at FAU Arena, on the heels of a significant FAU scoring surge in the second half.
Bethune-Cookman (3-11) opened the game strong, but Florida Atlantic (10-3), one of the nation's top scoring offenses, followed suit, tying up the contest early and kept the game close. The Lady Wildcats caught fire rolling into the midpoint, building up a six-point advantage. However, as the half wound down, FAU chipped away at the lead to force the game's third tie with 3:21 on the clock.
Across the closing minutes of the period, B-CU came out shooting, with 10 of B-CU's final 12 points coming from redshirt senior point guard Shakeyia Colyer. Across the final four minutes, the Lady Wildcats held the Owls to just two points until Takia Brooks converted on a three pointer with just three seconds remaining to narrow the gap to 36-34 at the break.
In the first half, six different Lady Wildcats players registered scores, topped by Colyer's 16, and shot 50 percent as a team.
Though Chastity René Taylor opened the scoring in the second half, dropping in a bucket just 11 seconds in, FAU began to find its trademark offense early in the period, using a pair of threes from Latavia Dempsey and Kimberly Smith, along with a three-point play by Shaneese Bailey, to jump out in front, building up a seven-point lead.
The Lady Wildcats narrowed the deficit to just two with 13:03 remaining on Colyer's jumper in the paint, but FAU fired back with a nine-point swing, consuming just 25 seconds for the Owls' first double-digit advantage. The Lady Wildcats traded scores with the Owls and trimmed the lead to eight, but late-game turnovers and free throws allowed FAU to pull away en route to an 81-65 final.
Although the Lady Wildcats led in the rebound margin early, an FAU lineup switch forced B-CU to match personnel, which proved costly, as FAU outrebounded the Lady Wildcats 30-17 in the second period.
"Their offensive rebounding really hurt us down the stretch," Head Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis commented. "They went to a smaller lineup, and they were just more aggressive. We had to change out lineup and take out [center] Kailyn [Williams] who's been a big factor for us in rebounding."
Colyer showed great offensive balance across the two halves to lead the Lady Wildcats with a career-high and team season-best 26 points on 63.2 percent shooting. In addition, Colyer tallied five rebounds and a pair of assists.
“I can say I was in the zone,” Colyer noted, “but at the same time, I was just being aggressive, listening to my coaches and just taking what the defense gave me.”
Taylor wasn't far behind, putting up 18 on 50 percent shooting in her 12th double-digit performance of the campaign.
A Miami native making a homecoming of sorts, redshirt junior forward Kayla Crawford topped the team with a career-high 12 rebounds; the second-best rebounding effort on the team this season.
Although B-CU shot a season-high 44.1 percent from the field against FAU, and pressured the Owls into the second-highest turnover count of the year (19), FAU shot 43.7 percent and outscored B-CU 47-29 in the second half.
The Lady Wildcats will go the next eight days without a game on the schedule, before going full bore into the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference slate, opening with North Carolina A&T on Jan. 11 and North Carolina Central on Jan. 13, both at Richard V. Moore Gymnasium.
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-B-CUathletics.com-
