At the beginning of the season the seniors on the University of Maryland women's basketball team set goals. One of them was to end the Terrapins 9 game home losing streak against the duke blue devils. On a chilly Monday night they accomplished just that and by doing so became the first team this season with 20 wins (10 straight).
This rematch of the 2006 championship game (which the Terps won in overtime) looked as if it would be a route as the Terrapins came out the gate with a lot of energy and jumped out to a big lead before Duke battled back with a run of their own. Maryland ended the first half with and 11 point lead.
At the start of the second half after being down 13 Duke used a 10-0 run to cut the lead to 47-43. Maryland responded by extending the lead back to 9 but couldn't put the game away. The Blue devils were resilient though. They kept battling and eventually tied the score at 65 on 7-0 flurry.
There were 7 minutes left. All of the sudden this was anybody's game.
Then the Maryland Terrapins kicked back into gear. They closed the game on a 17-2 run.
Marissa Coleman tied a career high with 30 pts as the No.4 Terps came away with the 85-70 win over the No.13 Blue Devils. The junior guard seemed to be on a mission to make sure her senior teammates went out with this win, leaving even her coach a little in awe.
Krisit Toliver scored 19 of her 21 points in the second half and added 6 assists. Crystal Langhorne added 16 points and 7 boards in a game where the Terps sometimes looked bored with big leads.
Jasmine Thomas and Wanisha Smith netted 17 points a piece for Duke who saw a 8 game winning streak snapped.
The Blue Devils fought valiantly but in the end poor free throw shooting and a lack of execution down the stretch proved detrimental.
Overall the game was a great one for fans to watch and a great start to a series of 8 potentially exciting Big Monday games on ESPN.
Next up is the much anticipated match up between Connecticut and North Carolina.
*Game Notes*
-The rivalry match up drew a crowd of 15,531. That's the 5th largest crowd in ACC history.
- Maryland's victory was its first against Duke since the 2005-2006 national championship game victory and the first regular-season win since Feb. 3, 2000. It was the first home win against Duke since Jan. 30, 1998.
-With nine rebounds, Laura Harper moved into fifth place all-time at Maryland with 724, passing Christy Winters.
Click Here For Post Game Quotes
Next up, UNC at UConn....
JayD
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