Mountaineer Women Roll

By John Antonik for WVUsports.com
January 22, 2011 06:38 PM

West Virginia's Sarah Miles gets bumped on the way to the basket during Saturday's game at the Coliseum against USF. The Mountaineers defeated the Bulls 78-52.

All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sarah Miles scored a season-high 16 points to match teammate Liz Repella’s 16 to lead ninth-ranked West Virginia to a 78-52 victory over South Florida Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum.

"I thought we had to have this game going on the road two games next week," said West Virginia coach Mike Carey. "It was an important game for us to get here at home."

The Mountaineers (19-1, 5-1) used a 19-0 run early in the second half to blow the game wide open. Following Daleisha Carn’s jumper with 17:27 left, West Virginia held USF (9-11, 0-6) scoreless for the next six minutes to turn a seven-point lead into a 26-point advantage.

The 26 points was West Virginia’s biggest margin, which the Mountaineers matched at the end on a 3 by freshman Taylor Palmer.

Carey, now 198-108 at WVU, used 12 different players and 10 ended up getting into the scoring column.

"We did what we had to do to win," he said. "There were spurts we looked good and spurts we stood around, but we still ended up winning by 26."

Senior Madina Ali, who has been playing with a stress fracture in her left leg, scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds before Carey was able to get her to the bench. She ended up playing only 17 minutes.

West Virginia shot 50.9% from the field (27 of 53) and hit 5 of 13 from 3-point distance. Repella made three of those and went 3 of 6 overall from behind the arc.

The Mountaineers had a 45-30 advantage on the glass, made 13 steals and blocked seven shots.

"They are so athletic and mobile and there is a reason why they are ranked and are having the year they are having," said USF coach Jose Fernandez.

The two teams combined to commit 44 turnovers with 24 of those coming from the Mountaineers.

Sisters Andrea and Andrell Smith led USF with 16 and 12 points respectively. The Bulls shot just 28.1% (16 of 57) for the game, including 25.9% (7 of 27) in the second half.

The victory was West Virginia’s 30th in a row at the Coliseum dating back to the 2009 season and an announced crowd of 4,555 - the seventh largest in school history – showed up for the game.

"I thought we had a great crowd," Carey said. "It really helps our team, especially when we go through some bad spurts, and we get a couple steals and a couple breaks and the crowd gets into it; our team really feeds off that."

West Virginia has won three straight following its first loss of the season at Marquette back on Jan. 11 and has two key road games coming up against ranked teams at Georgetown next Tuesday night and then at DePaul on Sunday afternoon in a game that will be televised nationally on ESPNU.

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