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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
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Edwards' Milestones Highlight Women's Basketball Win Over Lafayette
November 15, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Lauren Edwards Talks About Reaching 1,000 Points And 100 Three-Pointers
Lauren Edwards reached 100 on one shot and 1,000 on the next.
After that, the two most impressive numbers were 27 (the number of turnovers the Princeton women's basketball team forced against Lafayette) and 28 (the shooting percentage the Tigers forced the Leopards into).
Added all together, and the solution to the equation was an impressive 87-47 Princeton win, accomplished in front of a Monday night crowd of 604 at the Kirby Sports Center.
"Any road win is a good one," Princeton coach Courtney Banghart said. "I thought our defense was very good. We got in passing lanes and forced turnovers and turned it into offense."
The win was the second straight for Princeton on the young season, while Lafayette fell to 0-2.
Edwards entered her senior year with 982 career points and 99 career three-pointers, and she had 13 points and no three's in the season-opening 79-62 win over St. Joe's Friday night.
The drama for both of her milestones - and the game - ended early, as Edwards drained back-to-back threes to erase a 9-8 Lafayette lead. For the record, she became the 10th Princeton women's basketball player with 100 threes with 13:39 left in the first half and the 19th 1,000-point scorer with 12:51 to play.
"It's special for any college basketball player to reach 1,000 points," Edwards said. "I'm excited that I got to do it with this team. To do it on a three-pointer is pretty fitting. Shooting threes wasn't a strength of my game when I came here, so to reach 100 shows some growth."
At that point, the lead was 14-9 Princeton. It reached double figures at the exact midpoint of the first half at 22-11, and it would be a 20-point game at 38-18 at intermission.
Princeton's largest lead would be 43.
"Any game on the road is going to be tough," Edwards said. "It's a Monday night, a school night. We put our heads into it, and we came out with a win."
Niveen Rasheed led Princeton with 22 points, seven rebounds, three assists and four steals, but she was far from the only impressive player on the court.
In fact, Princeton got contributions from basically every player on the roster, and the lead went from in the 20s to the 40s with no starters on the court.
Among the big contributors were Nicole Hung (11 points, four rebounds), Alex Rodgers (first double figure game with 10 points, including 2 for 3 three-point shooting) and Blake Dietrick (her first seven career points in eight minutes).
Edwards finished with 10, giving Princeton four players in double figures in each of its first two games.
With the first two behind them, the Tigers can look ahead to Villanova and Marist in the next two, coming up Saturday afternoon (3) and Monday night (7) on Carril Court at Jadwin Gym.
Villanova has already beaten Michigan State, and Marist has become a perennial Top 25 team.
"The team will have off tomorrow," Banghart said. "Then we get back to work. It'll be like getting ready for an Ivy League weekend, with two big games in a short time. It'll be three pretty intense days to get ready for two really strong opponents."
Princeton, now 52-8 since the start of the 2009-10 season, is no slouch either. The Tigers gave up a 20-point lead to Lafayette in their last trip to Easton three years ago, but are now 3-0 in the last three games in the series, by a combined 105 points.
Early in the first half of the game Monday night, Banghart took two steps off the bench and clapped her hands as her team brought the ball down the court. As she did so, her watch broke and slipped off her wrist, hitting the floor.
While the ball was in play, she bent over to pick it up and then gave up, shoving what was left of it into her pocket.
On this 40-point night, when one of her seniors reached two major milestones and her younger players looked so good, the watch was all that went wrong for Banghart.