Women’s basketball: Navy notches back-to-back wins with help from a freshman

Welcome to a new weekly feature at Against All Enemies, where we’ll round up the week of women’s basketball at the Service Academies, preview what’s to come, highlight big performances and do some other fun stuff.

Less than a week into 2019, just one women’s basketball team at the three Service Academies has a winning record. At 6-5, Navy is the leader of the pack.

The Mids ended 2018 strong and kept that going into the New Year. On Monday, Stefanie Pemper’s side ended non-conference play with a win over Saint Joseph’s, and followed that up with a road victory on Thursday at Loyola to begin its Patriot League run. For the fourth and fifth times this season, Navy held its opponent to under 50 points.

In both wins, Navy got a boost from freshman Jennifer Coleman. While she committed some rookie mistakes — a total of 14 turnovers in those two games — she tallied 28 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists and four steals. It’s fair to say the Richmond, Virginia native did much more to help the Mids than to hurt them.

Navy has two home games before taking a road trip to New York to face Colgate. Up first is a contest in Annapolis against Lehigh, who went 9-3 in non-conference play.

Navy (6-5; 1-0)

Recent results:
W – 49-48 vs. Saint Joseph’s (Sophie Gatzounas: 13 points, 5 rebounds)
W – 58-46 at Loyola-Baltimore (Jennifer Coleman: 19 points, 13 rebounds)

Next up:
Jan. 6 vs. Lehigh
Jan. 9 vs. American

Stat blast: Navy is one of the best teams in the country when it comes to forcing turnovers. Through 10 games (so, before they played Loyola, where the Mids forced 11 turnovers) Navy had forced 220 turnovers. Easy math makes that 22 forced turnovers per-game, the 22^nd best mark in the country.

Army (5-7; 0-1)

Recent results:
W – 74-48 vs. Connecticut College (Madison Hovren: 27 points, 16 rebounds)
L – 51-63 at Boston Univ. (Madison Hovren: 13 points, 8 rebounds)

Next up:
Jan. 6 vs. Loyola-Baltimore
Jan. 9 vs. Bucknell

Stat blast: Army is 31^st in fewest fouls, committing just 172 through 11 games. For comparison, UT Martin is one of the most undisciplined teams in the country, fouling 282 times over 11 contests.

*Also: Madison Hovren is fourth in the nation in rebounding, grabbing 12.8 boards per-game. Only Minnesota’s Taiye Bello, Cal’s Kristine Anigwe and Virginia Tech’s Regan Magarity are ahead of her.

She also did this:

Air Force (4-8; 0-1)

Recent results:
L – 57-78 at New Mexico (Haley Jones: 13 points, 9 rebounds)

Next up:
Jan. 5 vs. Utah State
Jan. 9 vs. Colorado State

Stat blast: One thing Air Force is good at this year is running shooters off the three-point line. Through 12 games, opponents connect on just 26.7 percent of shots from behind the arc against Air Force, a defensive mark good enough for 36^th in the country.