Women's Basketball downs East Carolina, 84-68

Feb. 14, 2003

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MILWAUKEE - The Marquette women's basketball team defeated East Carolina, 84-68, Friday night at US Cellular Arena. The Golden Eagles' record improves to 13-9 on the season and 5-5 in C-USA play.

Sophomore Katie Alsdurf scored a season-high 18 points as she led the team in scoring. Alsdurf was one point away from her career-high, 19 points reached against Dayton in December of 2001.

Senior Rashida Gales came of the bench to score a season-high 11 points, all of which came in the first half.

Gales said the win tonight will help the team as they prepare for their game on Sunday with league-leading Charlotte.

"The focus before on the game was to not think of yourself but to think of the team," she said. "Our goal is to win both games this weekend. We got one tonight and we have to switch gears and come back and win against Charlotte."

After trailing the Pirates for the first 10 minutes of the game, Alsdurf hit a 3-point field goal with 9:43 left in the half to give Marquette a 19-18 lead. The Golden Eagles enjoyed the advantage for the remainder of the game.

Sophomore Lesley Juedes hit a three-pointer with four seconds left in the first half to give Marquette a 38-31 half-time advantage.

Alsdurf said that Juedes' three-pointer gave them momentum going into the half.

"It really did give us a lift," Alsdurf said. "It gave the team a little incentive, it got us prepared and we started the second half pretty well."

The Golden Eagles held East Carolina scoreless for six minutes in the second half. After Tali Robich made a lay-up with 18:19 left in the game, the Pirates didn't score until Katie Cloud hit a field goal with 12:55 remanding. Marquette took advantage of East Carolina's struggling offense to score 11 points at bring the lead up to 55-35.

The Golden Eagles' last home game is Sunday against Charlotte at 3 p.m. Alsdurf says the team kept the seniors in mind as they played their second-to-last home game.

"This whole week were just talking about seniors last week at home, everyone stepped up their game to get it done for them," Alsdurf said.