NORFOLK, Va. — NORFOLK, Va. (WTKR) — After Saturday afternoon's game, Delisha Milton-Jones ended her usual postgame address to Old Dominion fans inside Chartway Arena with two words: Keep believing.
It's something the Monarch's head coach has had to tell her team plenty of times this year, and the situation was all too familiar.
ODU couldn't find enough baskets to fend off Toledo in a gritty defensive battle, falling 56-52 in its second game of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge.
"Losing sucks and it hurts and it’s frustrating,” Milton-Jones said. “But losers will take it and they will allow the loss to separate us, allow the loss to have us judging. We're not that team.”
It's the continuation of a string of heartbreaking losses for the silver and blue. Dating back to the start of conference play, ODU has lost five games by five points or fewer.
After getting down to the Rockets by as many as 12 in the second quarter, the Monarchs used a 10-3 run to go into halftime trailing 30-25. Out of the break, the home team gashed its way back into the game with a tremendous defensive effort, holding Toledo to just eight third quarter points and heading into the final ten minutes tied at 38-38.
The visitors took a 42-40 lead with 8:06 left to play and down the stretch ODU was able to find a way to tie the game up twice but couldn't get the advantage back. Knotted up at 49-49, Khera Doss used a personal 5-0 run to give Toledo a 54-49 lead.
Brenda Fontana gave ODU some hope when she hit a corner three with 41 seconds left, which was followed by the Rockets splitting a pair of free throws to make the score 55-52 with 11 seconds left on the clock. Milton-Jones drew up a play for Simaru Fields to get a three-point look out of a timeout, but her look was just a touch off and Toledo was able to ice the game out with a free throw.
"The iron was unkind for us in certain moments,” she said. “But even so, I still think we had opportunities to win.”
It's the sixth loss in ODU's last seven games and drops the team down into a tie for sixth in the Sun Belt. With plenty of adversity facing the Monarchs, Milton-Jones preaching perseverance to her squad.
"You have to try and fight hard to find optimism, but there are a lot of good things," she said. "My team is still fighting."
"It's tough. It's tough but (Milton-Jones) comes to us as players and players go to players. We have an amazing leader, when shes sees our heads down she comes and picks us up," said Fields, who scored 11 points in the loss.
En'Dya Buford led the way with 14 points with Fontana also chipping in 11. ODU dominated in points in the paint with a 12-2 gap and forced 19 turnovers, but also got bested in rebounds with Toledo owning a 46-32 advantage on the boards.
ODU gets back into Sun Belt play with a pair of road games on deck, heading to Marshall on Thursday night before a trip to Harrisonburg to face James Madison on Saturday.
"We're still a great team. Some teams hit their lulls early, we're hitting ours in the middle," Milton-Jones said. "There's still work to be done because there's still a season left to play that we're fighting for."
