Titan Women Roll Past Miami Dade

All season long Eastern Florida women's basketball coach Jim Grimes has stressed to his team that it needed to play a complete, 40-minute game.

It came close on Saturday, jumping out to a 58-35 halftime lead en route to a 110-76 victory over Miami Dade College at the Titan Field House on the Melbourne Campus.

The victory raised Eastern Florida FCSAA Southern Conference-leading record to 12-1 and its overall mark to 19-8.

Miami Dade fell to 5-7 and 15-12.

The victory also avenged Eastern Florida's only conference loss of the season to date, a 72-68 defeat at Miami Dade on Jan. 30.

On Saturday the Titans reached the 68-point mark with 6 minutes and 38 seconds to play in the third quarter as sophomore Nene Johnson scored two of her team-high 20 points.

The Titans hit the 100-point mark, for the third time this season on freshman Kienya Jones' three-pointer with 6:37 to play.

The Titans defeated Miami Dade 105-85 on Jan. 9 in Melbourne.

Saturday's outcome was never in doubt as the Titans built an early 13-2 lead and stretched it to 30-15 at the end of the first quarter. They led 87-48 after three quarters.

Sophomore Crystal Townsend added 19 points for the Titans while sophomore Emma Grimes added 17, classmate Paola Vasquez 15 and freshman Trudy Walker 16. Jones scored 12.

Eastern Florida can clinch its second consecutive conference championship by defeating second place Broward College on Wednesday in Davie.

"We haven't talked a lot about what we need to do to clinch," Jim Grimes said. "We had some great practices this week and I'm hoping right now that we're peaking at the right time. We'll focus on a couple of good practices Monday and Tuesday and the results will take care of themselves if we're prepared like we were today.

"Nene was unbelieveable today. She had nine assists at halftime. When she's focused on making everyone around her better she's a special, special player. Paola and Emma were great on the perimeter today."

The game had special meaning for the Titans.

"We were looking for revenge, we wanted it," Johnson said. "This was our best offensive game. This is a big confidence booster. We've got finish the season strong going into the state tournament."

Broward was 10-2 heading into Saturday's game at Indian River State. Eastern Florida has beaten Broward twice this season to capture the tiebreaker should the teams finish the conference season with identical records.