Wednesday, February 09, 2011

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The North Florida women’s basketball team controlled play in the first half before fending off a furious second half rally to earn a 55-49 victory Tuesday night over cross-town Atlantic Sun rival Jacksonville at Veterans Memorial Arena.

With the win the Ospreys (11-12, 9-5 Atlantic Sun) earn a season sweep over the Dolphins (11-12, 6-8) for the first time in program history and also secure a spot in the 2011 General Shale Brick Atlantic Sun Conference tournament. UNF has now won five in a row and nine of its last 10 games.

A balanced UNF attack was led by senior Juliemay Syquio with 12 points and nine rebounds. Junior Brittany Kirkland added 11 points while freshman Jade Givens had 10 points. Sophomores Taylor Smith and Larkira Jones were solid inside with both scoring nine points while grabbing nine and eight rebounds, respectively.

The Dolphins were led by Taneskei Richardson with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Crystal Bell came off the bench to add 12 points for JU while Maggie Wilson hit nine.

“We played really well defensively for 30 minutes, but JU started pressing us and we didn’t handle their pressure very well,” said head coach Mary Tappmeyer. “They battled us like we knew they would. JU is a really competitive team and we knew they would look to make a run in the second half. We didn’t execute very well down the stretch, but fortunately we had built a big enough lead and were able to come out with the win.”

UNF raced out to the early lead behind the play of guards Kirkland and Syquio. The duo went 5-for-6 from the floor and scored all the points over the opening five minutes allowing the Ospreys to build a 10-2 lead at the first media timeout.

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