Panthers Make Mincemeat of Cayey
MELBOURNE, Fla. (Women’s Basketball) – Turkey day leftovers didn’t slow the Florida
Tech Panthers down on Friday as they improved to 3-0 on the season with a runaway win, 97-34, over the Bulls of the University of Puerto Rico-Cayey.
Florida Tech fans saw every Panther on the roster score Friday afternoon with four in double digits. The high scorer for the Panthers was junior guard
Kristin Heminger with
18 on the afternoon in only 20 minutes. Senior forward Kassie Crimi wasn’t far behind with 17
of her own to pair with her team high six rebounds in just 17 minutes of play. Freshman guard Amanda Allen had 15 while junior guard
Amanda Deveaux put in 10. Even though
freshman guard Lynisha
Nelson handed out seven assists, she wasn’t the leading passer for the Panthers for the first time this season. Freshman guard
Ashley Williams passed
for a game high eight assists. Florida Tech combined for 53.8 percent shooting from the field and 60 percent from beyond the three point line,
almost double the percentage of Cayey’s shooting. Nelson started the scoring quickly with a three pointer from the corner that helped the Panthers
start a 12-0 run until Nicole Davila of Cayey finally put one in for the Bulls. Later, Florida Tech dropped in three straight threes in the first five
minutes of the game before Head Coach John Reynolds subbed in five
new players. That didn’t slow the Panthers down because Deveaux hit a trey within seconds of coming in and Allen dropped in two more to push the
score to 24-6 with 14 minutes still left in the first half. Heminger and Allen both went 3-3 from beyond the three point line in the first half to
help the Panthers to a 58-19 halftime lead. Heminger finished shooting 4-5 from three point range and 6-12 from the field. Allen went a perfect 4-4 from
deep and 5-5 shooting on the night. The first half also saw the Panthers shoot nearly 70 percent from three point range and 58.3 percent from the field.
Things didn’t slow down in the second half. Florida Tech went 3-7 from the three point line, 8-9 from the free throw line and 14-29 from the field.
The team out rebounded Cayey by a margin of 14, 42-28. As the Panthers began to run away with the game, many teams might have lost focus. The
Panthers didn’t. “I’m really proud of the focus the team had down the stretch,” Reynolds said. “The just displayed great focus throughout the entire
game.” It showed in the end with a 97-34 victory. The Panthers will see their next action on Monday at 7 p.m. in Melbourne against Florida
Memorial University. BOX
SCORE