Jan. 18, 2004
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Freshmen Lizanne Murphy, Shalamar Oakley and Lana Harshaw combined for 43 points as the Hofstra Women's Basketball team stunned 12-time defending CAA Champion Old Dominion 74-72 on Sunday afternoon at Hofstra Arena.
With the win, Hofstra improves to 7-7 overall and 4-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association, while Old Dominion drops to 9-6 overall and 4-1 in league play. The Pride has now won their first five home games for the first time since the program became Division I in 1982-1983. In addition, the 4-1 start in CAA action is the team's best-ever as a Division I program. The four conference victories already equals Hofstra's entire total from the 2002-2003 season.
The Lady Monarchs entered the contest with an all-time mark of 182-10 in regular season CAA games and prior to today had lost a combined five conference games since the start of the 1992-1993 season.
Murphy, who set a new career-high in points, shot 9-of-10 at the free throw line, including 3-of-4 in the final 20 seconds. She missed her final attempt at the line with 3.3 seconds left, and Old Dominion's senior Monique Coker took a 75-footer at the buzzer that hit off the front rim.
Hofstra got off to a good start in the contest as a three-pointer from senior Staceyann Claxton at the 15:50 mark of the first half gave the Pride an early 12-6 advantage. The lead would be short-lived though, as Old Dominion stormed back and scored 13 of the next 15 points to make the score 19-14 in favor of the Lady Monarchs. Old Dominion would not relinquish the lead the remainder of the first half, and opened up their largest lead of 10, 39-29, on a three-pointer from Coker with 2:04 left before the break. Hofstra closed the half on a 7-2 run to trim the deficit to five at 41-36.
The Pride continued their strong play as they scored the first 14 points of the second half, and held a 50-41 lead with 16:07 left. The Lady Monarchs slowly chipped away at the Hofstra lead, and got within two (59-57) on a jumper from senior Myriah Spence with 7:40 left on the clock. Hofstra's lead would stay between two and five points over the next 7:35 before a Spence three-pointer got Old Dominion within one, 73-72, with five seconds remaining. Murphy would then make one-of-two from the free throw line with 3.3 seconds left before Coker's desperation heave was no good, giving Hofstra arguably their greatest win ever.
Hofstra's freshman had quite an outing as they accounted for the Pride's final 24 points of the game and 28 of Hofstra's 38 second half points. Joining the three freshmen in double figures for Hofstra was Claxton and junior Amaka Agugua, who each tallied 10 points. Murphy added a team-high six rebounds to her effort, while Claxton had a game and career-high tying seven steals and tied for team-high honors with four assists.
For the Lady Monarchs, Coker had her team-leading eighth double-double with 12 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Junior Shareese Grant scored a game-high 17 points for Old Dominion and also added a game and personal season-high eight assists.