Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - The Johns Hopkins women's basketball team fell victim to the Gettysburg Bullets suffocating defense in the second half of Wednesday nights 53-46 loss to the Bullets. Hopkins struggled to get anything going offensively in the latter portion of the game, shooting 9-35 in the second half.

Hopkins jumped out to a quick 13-6 lead five and a half minutes into play, behind seven points from Liz Tommasi. Two Maggie Fruehan free throws bumped the lead to nine before Emily Duggan answered a layup of her own.

After a Katie Clark three, Jenna Swope responded with a layup of her own, before Rachel Cook notched her first bucket of the game, bringing the lead back to 10. But the Bullets spent the remainder of the first half chipping away at that lead.

Following the Cook bucket, Jessica Porter nailed a jumper before Samantha Pagel went on a 4-0 run of her own with two free throws followed by a layup. Alyssa Fleming drew a foul on the next Hopkins possession and knocked down a free-bee, making the Hopkins lead five with 4:12 remaining in the first half.

Porter would answer with a layup and two free throws of her own, bringing the Bullet deficit to one, 21-20, with 2:57 left. After a Ciara McCullagh free throw, Kim Ryan buried a deep triple for the visitors, putting Gettysburg up 23-22 entering halftime.

Duggan and Jenna Swope started the second half with back-to-back buckets sandwiched around two missed layups by Tommasi. McCullagh answered with a strong and-1 inside, cutting the deficit to two, 27-25. After a Porter turnover, Beatriz Williams converted on an up-and-under and got fouled in the act. Williams nailed her free throw and the Jays regained the lead.

That was the last time the Jays would have the lead, though, as the Bullets would answer with scores on three consecutive possessions, including a Swope three. Williams would get Hopkins back within two after a made free throw and deep triple, but Annie Reilly responded with two makes from the charity stripe, making the Bullets lead four, 36-32, with 11:17 left to play.

From there, Porter took over. The junior guard from Narberth, PA, scored 10 of her team's next 13, and the visitors took a commanding 11-point lead with 4:57 left in the game.

Clark finally stemmed the tide with a three from the right wing, bringing the deficit eight. Tommasi had a chance to close the gap even further, but couldn't convert on a fastbreak layup, and the score remained 49-41 with 3:38 left.

After Porter missed a jumper, Hopkins cut the lead down to six with a McCullagh put-back after a Clark missed three. The Jays defense held strong on the next possession, forcing a missed layup by Duggan. After Clark had her fastbreak layup partially blocked by Emily Gibbons, Porter missed another opportunity to put the game away with a missed jumper.

Coming out of a Hopkins timeout the Jays drew up a play to get Jess Brown an open three on the left wing off a double-pin-down screen. As the play developed, Brown took a pass from Tommasi, left of the top of the key, and buried it, bringing the Jays within three, 49-46, with 1:29 remaining.

On Gettysburg's next possession, Ryan missed an open three, but Porter was there to grab the rebound and went to the line to shoot one-and-one following a McCullagh foul. As Porter released her shot, she instantly knew it was short, and snuck inside McCullagh to grab her own rebound and convert a layup, bumping the lead to five, 51-46 with one minute left.

McCullagh would miss two layups on the Jays next possession and Swope would walk to the line after being fouled by Clark. Swope missed the front-end of her one-and-one and McCullagh cleared the board.

Out of a Blue Jays timeout, Clark got a look at a three from the left wing, but missed, and Gettysburg would push the lead to seven after two made free-bees, putting the game on ice.

Coming into the game, the Bullets led the country in field goal percentage defense, holding teams to just 29.6 percent shooting on the season. The Bullets locked down even more than usual in this one, forcing the Jays to shoot just 9-35 in the second half and held them to just 28.1 percent from the field for the game.

Williams led the Jays in the scoring column with 11 points, while McCullagh finished with six points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench. After coming out of the gate strong, Tommasi struggled in the second half, going 0-6 and finishing just 3-12 on the night.

Defensively though, the Jays displayed quick hands all night, forcing 21 turnovers while collecting 12 steals, led by four each from Williams and Tommasi.

For Gettysburg, Porter stole the show, finishing with 22 points on 7-15 from the field and 8-10 from the foul line and was one rebound shy of a double-double. Meanwhile Swope finished with a very balanced stat line of 13 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The Blue Jays are next in action next Wednesday, as they travel up the road to Westminster, MD, to take on the McDaniel Green Terror. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 pm.