Women's Basketball 2/25/2025 2:00:00 PM

Women’s Basketball Remains Away, Travels to Navy

WASHINGTON – American University women's basketball has three games left to play in the regular season and up next the squad will play Navy on Wednesday, Feb. 26. Opening tip between the Eagles and the Mids in Annapolis will be 7 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN+.

Follow Along

Date/Time: Wednesday, Feb. 26; 7 p.m.
Site: Annapolis, Md. (Alumni Hall)
TV: ESPN+

Series History

Across the extensive history, American leads 43-27, but in recent meetups, AU trails Navy 3-2 in the series, having lost the most recent three contests in a row. Earlier this season, in their first league game, AU fell 66-59 to the Mids in Bender Arena.
In their first meeting this year, Navy led the Eagles 37-32, although American went on to outscore Navy, 13-12, in the third period. Navy pushed through to lead the Eagles by the end with a seven point, 66-59, victory over AU in Bender Arena.
For American, freshman Ellie Pingree led with a career high of 17 points in her 35 minutes on the hardwood.
Laura Nogues was the only other Eagle in double digit scoring position, draining three from the three-pointer line and hitting 4-10 overall. She had 12 points, two steals and seven rebounds. Freshman Cecelia Kay, had the most rebounds for American, finishing the game with nine.
Navy's Zenai Barnett-Gay led all the players on the court with 26 points that night and Mary Gibbons dropped 13 points for Navy. Barnett-Gay scored a perfect 8-of-8 from the free-throw line that night. Morgan Demos secured a game-high 12 rebounds to go with her 13 points and two steals.

AU Quick Hits

On Saturday, AU journeyed North to Boston to take on the Terriers, falling in Case Gym, 82-72, to the home team in a shootout. BU shot 51.7 percent from the floor overall and 37.5 percent from three, making nine triples. Meanwhile, American shot 37.9 percent overall and 38.9 percent from three, draining a program-record 14 three pointers in Beantown.
American had 40 points coming off the bench on Saturday afternoon, led by freshman forward Elizabeth Archer and a career-high 17 points. BU tallied 38 points off its bench, 24 of which came from Anete Adler who shot 10-of-11 from the floor.
Archer went 3-of-5 from three point range and collected five rebounds. She was joined in double-digits by freshmen classmates Cecilia Kay (13) and Molly Driscoll (12). Kay had a late start to scoring but improved throughout to tally 13 points. She matched Archer's five rebounds. Driscoll added three rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
The teams were only separated by one rebound, BU leading 32-31 on the glass and they shot 11-of-14 as a team from the line while American went 8-of-10.
This season, Kay sits atop the Eagles' stat sheet, averaging 11.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game. The rookie forward, having started every contest of her debut campaign, in currently second in the league for both blocks and rebounding.
Kay has inked herself into the AU record books with three regular season games to go in her debut season as an Eagle. She has collected 227 rebounds so far this season. She sits at fifth most in a single season. In blocks, the freshman is tied for 10th all-time in a single season with 40.
Ivy Bales is now eighth all time in AU history with 593 career rebounds. Bales was the 20th player in AU history to become a member of the 500 rebound club, having hit the milestone in December against Towson. She is also now seventh in AU history in assists with 341.
Bales is also currently tied for the most games all-time played by an AU student-athlete with 127 and there are three games remaining in the regular season.

Scouting Navy

Navy, with eight wins in conference play, sits at sixth in the league after grabbing that eighth win over Holy Cross, 66-57, on Saturday night in Worchester. Navy holds a contested 7-7 home record in Alumni Hall, four of the wins coming from conference play.
Against Holy Cross, Navy's sophomore Zanai Barnett-Gay scored 18 points and freshman Julianna Almeida scored 13 to get the Mids to win number 16 of the season.
Barnett-Gay shot 8-of-15 from the field, adding six rebounds, six assists, and a steal. The sophomore guard has scored in the double digits every game but one this season. Almeidia picked up ten rebounds and three turnovers to go along with her 13 points against Holy Cross.
Navy finished the game shooting just under 40 percent. The Mids wheeled Holy Cross into nine turnovers while they themselves committed 10 and tallied seven steals. Navy had their run on the boards with 47 rebounds and limiting the Crusaders to 36. This brings the Mids' average number of rebounds in a game up to 40.5.
On the season, sophomore Barnett-Gay is second in the league for scoring, dropping an average of 19.3 ppg and is less than a one point difference shy of tying for first place. She also holds fourth in the league for rebounding, averaging 7.7 boards per game, leading the Mids squad in both points and rebounds this season. The guard averages 10.2 ppg higher than her next closest teammate, Almeidia, who averages 9.1 ppg.
Barnett-Gay also tops the Patriot League in steals this season, averaging 2.4 steals per game. In a prolific sophomore season, she has racked up 63 steals so far, which is more than double than the next closest teammate, Toni Papahronis.
As a team, Navy sits at the top of league in combined team rebounds, averaging just over 40 rebounds per game, compared to AU's 34.6.