GREENSBORO – Players from the North Carolina A&T women's basketball team are starting fall into and understand their roles.
As a result the Aggies are one of the hottest teams in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference as evidenced by their impressive 80-51 win over a Florida A&M team that came into Saturday's game at the Corbett Sports Center only a half-game behind the Aggies in the standings.
The Aggies have won six out of their last eight and improved to 12-10 overall and 7-3 in the MEAC. They are a half-game behind Bethune-Cookman, Morgan State and Hampton. Bethune-Cookman is scheduled to come into Corbett Monday night at 5:30. A week later the Aggies go to Morgan State before closing out their road schedule at Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman, therefore the Aggies have the potential to make a lot of upward mobility in the standings going into their March 3 game at home against N.C. Central.
“We're starting to turn the corner,” said N.C. A&T head coach Tarrell Robinson. “Whitney Martin gave us great energy off the bench. Kenya Hailey is doing a great job defensively and crashing the boards. Kayla Green is doing a heckuva job playing the point and keeping the tempo with (starting point guard Christina Carter) out. And Dana Brown is Dana Brown. You can't leave her open.”
With all their players playing their role, five Aggies scored in double figures for the Aggies led by Martin and Aprill McRae who scored 14 points apiece. Martin also grabbed a career-high seven rebounds. Green added 13 and Brown and Courtney Powell had 10 apiece as the Aggies shot 48 percent from the floor.
After Dawn King's 3-pointer five minutes into the first quarter went through the net to give the Rattlers (12-11, 6-4 MEAC) an 8-6 lead, N.C. A&T dominated the guard-oriented Rattlers. Martin sparked a 13-0 run by grabbing an Adriana Nazario miss and putting it back to tie the game at 8. Martin then hit a short jumper in transition off a pass from Brown to give the Aggies the lead. Green helped the Aggies close out the run with a 3-pointer off a pass from Nazario.
After a Khadejra Young basket to open the second quarter to put the Rattlers to within nine at 19-10. But the Aggies answered with a 15-3 run that concluded with a Brown three and another Martin jump shot to give the Aggies a 34-13 lead with 3:37 remaining in the half. FAMU never got any closer than 14 the rest of the night as the conference's third-leading scorer Olivia Antilla (15.5 ppg) to eight points by the Aggies defense. Young led the Aggies with 24.
“FAMU is the top scoring team in the league,” said Robinson. “They have two players who are in the top-10 in the league as far as scoring. That was a concern of ours because they have five guards and obviously we have (6-foot-3) Aprill McRae, so matchups are something you have to look at coming in. Our players did what they were supposed to do as far as scouting, so we got the win.”
