CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – In its fourth road contest in two weeks, the FGCU women's basketball team came from behind to defeat Harvard 68-58 Friday night at Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion. With the strong road win, the Eagles, who entered the matchup ranked 14 in the official RPI, finish nonconference competition a record of 13-2, while the Crimson fall to 6-6 on the year.
 
After exchanging the lead with the Eagles 11 times, the home team took hold of a game high six-point lead with 6:33 left to play. The Eagles hailed for a timeout before sparking the strongest streak of the season thus far. Backed by four forced Harvard turnovers and five made field goals on nine attempts, the Green and Blue produced 19-straight points to take hold of game and forge ahead with the lead. The Crimson were unable to stop the Eagle's momentum and watched as FGCU turned the six-point deficit into a 13-point advantage in a span of just six minutes. Harvard sank one final three but the Eagles maintained the lead to win their eighth-straight contest with the 68-58 final score.
 
"It was go time at the point of the timeout," said head coach Karl Smesko.  "Harvard had played so well and we weren't shooting the ball particularly well. We needed to make some defensive plays and knock down some shots. Whitney [Knight] and Anthi [Chatzigiakoumi] hit great shots for us and DyTiesha [Dunson] made some really good defensive plays.  We are fortunate that in that last six and a half minutes we played really well and we were able to steal the win."
 
Despite being outshot and outrebounded by the home team, the Eagles produced 25 points on 22 Harvard turnovers to hold the contest's advantage. FGCU shot 36.1 percent from the field with a 34.5 percent clip from 3-point range and pulled down 30 rebounds. The Eagles dished out 16 assists with 14 steals and just eight turnovers. The team's free-throw percentage also aided in the victory as the Eagles went 14-for-19 including six makes on six attempts in the last minute of action.
 
Junior Kaneisha Atwater (Fort Pierce, Fla./Fort Pierce Westwood High School/VCU) led the Eagles with 19 points on the night, while classmate Whitney Knight (Winston-Salem, N.C./R.J. Reynolds High School) put up 18 points with a team-best five rebounds before fouling out with just over a minute to go.  Senior Anthi Chatzigiakoumi (Athens, Greece/General Senior High School of Kallithea) contributed 15 points and four rebounds as the trio combined for 52 of the team's 69 points. Atwater also tied her career high and led the team with six steals.
 
Atwater and Stephanie Haas (Avon Lake, Ohio/Magnificat High School) opened the game with back-to-back layups to give the Eagles a quick 4-0 lead. The Green and Blue defense held the Crimson scoreless for the first 5:42 with six forced turnovers but once getting on the board, the home team took a 5-4 lead before the 12-minute mark. 
 
Atwater responded with a traditional 3-point play before the teams traded the lead eight more times in the first half. Neither team ever held more than a four-point lead as the game went back-and-forth. With two minutes remaining in the half, the Crimson turned a one-point deficit into a lead with four-straight points and went into the break with a 30-27 advantage.
 
The second half opened with a steal from Atwater before the Eagles tied the game at 30 with a 3-pointer from Haas. The Crimson went ahead three times in the next three minutes but Chatzigiakoumi responded on each possession to keep the contest tied. After the international senior's second-consecutive layup tied the contest at 37, Harvard hailed for a timeout.
 
The teams again traded buckets out of the timeout and the game saw its 11th tie score at 41 as Knight drove to the rim five minutes into the second half. A Haas 3-point play and a long-range shot from Atwater gave FGCU its largest lead of the game to that point at 47-41 but the Crimson would not succumb to visitors.
 
Sparked by a second-chance layup from the team's leading scorer, Harvard produced a 10-point run midway through the half to take a 55-49 lead and force Smesko into a timeout with 6:29 to play.
 
The timeout proved to be the turning point in the contest as the Eagles immediately saw a 3-pointer from Knight and reclaimed the lead with buckets from Atwater and Chatzigiakoumi.
 
With 3:28 to play, the Eagles used back-to-back 3-pointers from Knight and Chatzigiakoumi with a Harvard three-second violation in between to pull ahead 60-55. Atwater followed with a steal at half court and a fast-break layup to push FGCU's advantage to 62-55 with 1:44 on the clock.  Harvard missed a 3-pointer and two free throws near the one minute mark before sending FGCU to the free-throw line on each of the Eagles' next three possessions. The team sank 6-of-6 shots from the charity stripe in the final minute to increase the advantage to a game-high 13 points before Harvard brought the final score to 68-58 with a 3-point shot on the last possession.
 
FGCU's come back featured four Harvard turnovers and 11-straight missed shots by the opponent. The Eagles outrebounded Harvard 8-6 and went 5-for-9 from the field with three long-range makes in the span of six minutes.
 
As the winners of eight straight, the Eagles head back to Alico Arena to open Atlantic Sun play against Stetson Saturday, Jan. 10. In a quest for their fifth-straight regular season championship, the team will open the conference season with a 4 p.m. game as part of a men's/women's double header.
 
Single-game tickets for all FGCU women's basketball games are on sale online at FGCUAthletics.com, over the phone at 239-590-7145 or in person at the Alico Arena Box Office.
 
Group sales for women's basketball games are available for parties of 20 or more at a discounted rate.  Beginning this season, groups will receive the opportunity for to upgrade their package to include chairback seats, a PA announcement and a special FGCU group T-Shirt at a cost of $10.
 
For up-to-the minute information on the FGCU women's basketball team, stay tuned to FGCUAthletics.com and follow the official Twitter of FGCU women's basketball at @FGCU_WBB.
 
Head coach Karl Smesko earned his fourth-consecutive Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year award after a successful 2013-14 campaign. Under his direction, the team completed the season with a record of 26-8, including a 17-1 mark in conference action and won the program's 300th win in January. Smesko guided the Eagles to their fourth-consecutive regular season championship and went undefeated in the A-Sun Conference tournament to win their second Tournament Championship in three seasons.  The 2013-14 season marked the 10th-consecutive season in which a Smesko coached team won at least 20 games.  He has recorded 327 wins at FGCU with 117 Atlantic Sun victories.  The five-time Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year ranks among an elite list of just four active Division I coaches with a career win percentage of .800 or higher.  Smesko joins Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, Baylor's Kim Mulkey and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer in the esteemed group.
 
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