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Lavender Leads Way, Sets Board Mark
December 03, 2010
The Ohio State men did their part in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge earlier in the week by dumping Florida State in Tallahasse on Tuesday. Thursday night, the women did their part with a 74-46 triumph over Virginia.
The game was staged before a crowd of 2,392 at St. John Arena, the same site of a famous battle between the programs in the early 1990s when Katie Smith was a freshman.
The No. 6 Buckeyes improved to 6-0 and controlled the contest from start to finish. Virginia’s record evened at 4-4.
The win marked OSU’s first in the Challenge after losses in the first three encounters. Ohio State improved to 6-1 all-time against the Cavaliers and 20-13 overall vs. teams from the ACC.
The Buckeye defense held Virginia without a field goal for the first 4:41 of the game and OSU also posted a 10-0 run in the last 2:35 of the first half to take a 40-26 lead to intermission.
“We caught a rhythm at the end of the first half, hitting shots and playing our basketball,” said OSU point guard Samantha Prahalis, who finished with 14 points and eight assists.
Simone Egwu had 11 points and Lexie Gerson 10 for the Cavaliers, who played their fourth straight ranked opponent.
But the star of the contest – no surprise – was OSU All-American center Jantel Lavender. She logged 23 points and 13 rebounds, the latter mark vaulting her past Tracey Hall for the program’s all-time record in career rebounds. Hall amasses 1,115 boards from 1985-88. Lavender is now at 1,121 and counting.
“It’s a good record,” Lavender said. “Tracey Hall was a good player and she set high standards, but I don’t think about that stuff. I just rebound.”
Lavender also extended her streak of scoring in double figures to 108 games, tops among all players in Division I.
“I coached Jantel with USA Basketball and I knew she was really good coming into this game,” Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. “She always finishes hard. The players around her hurt us the most. Cutting their lead to 4 made us winded and we were not able to sustain our energy. It is always hard to come back from being down 10 against a top-10 team.”
“We like to get everyone tired,” OSU coach Jim Foster said when told of Ryan’s remarks. “We like to get up and down the floor. I think the byproduct of that in the second half was they were tired and were fouling us. It changed the tempo of this game and we have to be able to handle that.”
The closest Virginia got in the second half was 48-36 with 12 minutes left. Ohio State increased the lead to 18 in the next three minutes.
The Cavaliers committed 16 of their 21 fouls in the second half and the Buckeyes made 13 free throws in the stanza.
“Their post players were really physical,” Lavender said. “They were jamming it in a little bit. We said they were pretty much like bulldozer-type players.”
Lavender talked about the importance of winning the Challenge afterward, but the Big Ten went 3-4 on the evening and was nipped 6-5 in the competition.
Prahalis is at 999 career points and will become just the third Buckeye in school history to record at least 1,000 career points and 500 assists.
The Buckeyes next face No. 11 Oklahoma on Sunday evening (6 p.m. Eastern, Big Ten Network). Also looming is a Dec. 11 trip to Syracuse as well as a date with No. 1 Connecticut Dec. 19 in New York City.