Jan. 2, 2011
TOWSON, Md. - Senior forward Alena Voronina exploded for a career-high 25 points to lead Old Dominion to a 69-63 victory at Towson Sunday in the Colonial Athletic Association opener for both teams.
The wire-to-wire win improves Old Dominion to 20-0 all-time in CAA openers. The victory is also ODU's first road win this season. The Lady went 8-1 on the road in CAA play last year.
Voronina is the first Lady Monarch to score 25 or more points in a game since Jessica Canady accomplished the feat almost three years ago. Canady registered 28 points at Northeastern on Jan. 24, 2008. Voronina ended her career day shooting 12-of-17 from the field and pulling down six rebounds.
Old Dominion, which improves to 7-5 overall, shot a season-best 52.1 percent from the field. Towson (6-6, 0-1 CAA) had five players score in double figures for the first time since January 7, 2010. Dovile Miliauskaite paced the Tigers with 13 points and 10 rebounds for her second straight double-double.
Junior Tia Lewis chipped in 12 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, while Shadasia Green netted 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
Jasmine Parker added 10 points and swiped a career-high tying seven steals. Sophomore JoNiqia Guilford dished out a career-high six assists in the win.
Voronina, who had missed the last six games with an elbow injury, scored the games first four points to spark an 8-0 ODU run to start the contest. Towson responded with back-to-back three-point field goals to cut the deficit to two.
Towson didn't record its first two-point field goal until the 12:26 mark of the first half when Jessica Haywood converted a lay-up to cut ODU's lead to 15-11. From that point, the Lady Monarchs rattled off 13 consecutive points and held the Tigers without a field goal for over seven minutes.
A Green traditional three-point play capped ODU's spurt and put the Lady Monarchs up 28-11 at the 6:09 mark. Old Dominion led Towson, which committed 19 turnovers in the first half, 36-23 at the break.
After a Voronina bucket to start the second half, the Tigers went on a 17-6 run to get to within four (44-40) with 11:59 to play. Although the game remained tight and ODU's lead never got back to double-digits, Towson could not get any closer than four the rest of the way.
After three consecutive games away from the Ted Constant Center, Old Dominion returns home on Thursday, Jan. 6. The Lady Monarchs will play host to George Mason in their CAA home opener with tip time set for 7 p.m.
-ODU-