NORFOLK, Va. — NORFOLK, Va. (Old Dominion Athletics) — The Old Dominion women’s basketball team needed a stellar effort to upset Sun Belt Conference leader James Madison Saturday afternoon and, alas for the Monarchs, they didn’t get it.
The Monarchs shot poorly and were beaten in nearly every phase of the game as they fell to JMU, 85-62, before a season-high crowd of 2,987 at Chartway Arena.
It was the first of two games between ODU and JMU in this season's TowneBank Royal Rivalry series. The teams meet again Feb. 15 in Harrisonburg.
JMU (19-4 overall, 11-0 Sun Belt) won its 11th game in a row while ODU (14-9, 6-5) lost for the fourth time in its last five games.
ODU made just 20 of 59 shots (34 percent), was outscored in the paint, 46-18, had 17 turnovers and had just three assists in the game’s first 30 minutes. ODU finished with eight assists thanks to a scoring burst in the game’s waning minutes.
Hama’ya Fielder, the 5-foot-8 junior college transfer, came off the bench and led ODU with 16 points in just 12 minutes.
En’Dya Buford, who played all but 64 seconds of the contest, scored 13 points, five rebounds and four assists. Simaru Fields added 14 points.
DeLisha Milton-Jones added that her players didn't share the ball, nor did they guard well from behind the three-point line.
"If we had taken away the three-point line like we had designed (the game plan) to do, it would have been much closer at halftime," she said.
"You can't allow a team that is as good as James Madison" to have so many open shots.
JMU took a 10-point lead, 13-3, just six minutes into the game on Ro Scott’s three-pointer. The Monarchs managed to play almost even the rest of the quarter, as Fields made a putback shot with a minute left in the quarter to pull ODU within 21-10.
But the Dukes quickly expanded the lead to 23 as Peyton McDaniel made back-to-back three-pointers to make it 40-17.
JMU led by 26 with a minute left but a Mariah Clayton jump shot and breakaway layup by Jadyn Atchison trimmed the margin to 22 at the half.
Bree Robinson’s three-pointer at the buzzer built the JMU lead to 30, 69-39, at the end of the third quarter and the Dukes coasted the rest of the way.
"Every team is going to hit adversity at some point in the season and that just happens to be us right now," Fielder said. "So staying together, and having love for this program, is really big for us.
"So I think as we stay together we're going to be able to break through this well."
ODU travels to Troy on Wednesday, Feb. 5 before hosting Toledo at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8 in the second round of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge. ODU's final two home games come on Feb. 20 against Arkansas State and Feb. 22 against Georgia Southern.
Saturday's game was played on National Girls and Women in Sports Day and Milton-Jones said having such a large crowd in Chartway Arena showed how far women's sports have come.
"It was so awesome to see the arena filled with so many amazing young and older women, and even some amazing men, coming out to support us and support our cause," she said.
"I love the fact that even though we lost and didn't play the way we wanted to, they still saw some amazing things happening on the court."
