Box Score Box Score (.pdf)
Iowa City, Iowa – Coco Ritter scored a team-high 11 points in her first collegiate game for USC Upstate as it opened the 2014-15 season Friday night with a 107-56 defeat to the 19th-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes in front of 5,291 fans from Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Upstate (0-1) remains in the state of Iowa Sunday afternoon when it travels to Iowa State to face the Cyclones at 1:30 p.m. inside Hilton Coliseum.
Ritter finished the game shooting 5-of-6 from the floor and added four rebounds to her effort. Brittany Starling and Travonda Haddock added nine and eight points each, while Shelby Hicks pulled down seven rebounds. Brittany Clency dished out a team-best four assists.
Bethany Doolittle tallied a double-double on 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Hawkeyes, and Ally Disterhoft led all players with 19 points. Also in double-figures for the Hawkeyes were Melissa Dixon (16), Samantha Logic (11) and Alexa Kastanek (10).
Upstate connected on two of its first three field-goal attempts to start the game as a two by Clency and three from Kristen Dickerson gave the Spartans a 5-0 lead early. Iowa answered with eight straight points as Disterhoft scored four to put the Hawkeyes in front 8-5. Starling cut the Upstate deficit to one, 8-7, the next possession as the half reached the 15:54 mark.
A three by Haddock kept the Spartans within four at 15-11, but would be held scoreless over the next three minutes as Iowa went on an 11-0 run to push its advantage to 26-11. Following a three-point play by Starling to make it 36-16, the Hawkeyes compiled a 14-2 run to increase their lead to 50-18 with 3:09 left. Raven Jefferson halted the run with two free-throws.
Iowa (1-0) registered the final seven points of the first half as Kastanek gave it a 59-22 lead heading into halftime on her three with one second on the clock.
The Hawkeyes outscored Upstate 48-34 in the second half as Ritter scored all 11 of her points during that period. She scored the first six Spartan points coming out of the locker room with her final basket during that run making the score 67-28 at the 17:10 mark. Jefferson later cut Upstate's deficit to 72-34 on her layup with 14:01 remaining.
After another layup by Jefferson made it 80-39, Iowa used a 19-2 run over nearly a four minute span to go ahead 99-41 following two free-throws from Whitney Jennings. The Hawkeyes benefited from three three-pointers during the run including two straight from Kathryn Reynolds. The Spartans countered with seven points in a row highlighted by Nora Berry's three on her first collegiate field-goal attempt. Sharmayne Edwards added the next four points on consecutive series with two free-throws and a jumper to put Upstate down 99-48.
Following Starling's layup with 4:57 left, neither team registered a point for the next 1:16 until a free-throw by Maddie Herr. Ritter notched her final three points of the game with her last, a free-throw, coming with 3:11 remaining in the game to trim the Iowa lead to 103-54. Haddock logged the game's closing point with 20 seconds on the clock, making the score 107-56.
The Spartans finished the game shooting 32.3% (20-for-62) and was 13-of-19 (68.4%) at the charity stripe. The Hawkeyes shot 56.5% (35-for-62) as a team including an 11-of-22 (50.0%) mark behind the three-point line.
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