Graduate student forward Sammi Mikonowicz scored a game-high 27 points to lead Toledo women’s basketball to a 58-51 victory over previously unbeaten Navy in the opening game of the Navy Classic at Alumni Hall on Saturday afternoon.
Sophomore Zanai Barnett-Gay scored 18 points and freshman Mary Gibbons came off the bench to net 17 to lead the Midshipmen (6-1), who missed 16 of their first 17 shots. Navy won six straight to start the season against opponents with a combined 13-25 record.
Meanwhile, Toledo (4-1) is a perennial powerhouse in the Mid-American Conference, having compiled an 86-17 record against league opponents over the past three seasons. The Rockets upset the fifth seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 2023.
Which is why Navy coach Tim Taylor knew his young team was going to be tested.
“I told them we are stepping up the competition and this will be the best team we play all year. And we knew we’d have to play a really good game to beat them,” Taylor said.
Taylor also knew that for Navy to have a chance, it was important to get off to a good start. Unfortunately, the exact opposite happened. The Mids missed three straight shots to start the game, committed four turnovers in the first four minutes and couldn’t stop Mikonowicz.
“We really didn’t have an answer for [Mikonowicz],” Taylor said. “I felt like we were taking good shots, but we couldn’t hit any.”
After seeing her squad fall behind early in previous contests, Toledo’s first-year coach Ginny Boggess was pleased with how the visitors started against Navy.
“We haven’t had great starts at home,” Boggess said. “I thought you saw a tremendous amount of effort on the defensive end. I was proud of our start.”
After a Taylor timeout and another Mikonowicz bucket, Navy finally got on the scoreboard midway through the first quarter as sophomore Kyah Smith’s missed 3-pointer was rebounded by Gibbons, who made an uncontested layup.
Those would be the Midshipmen’s only points in the opening stanza as they would miss their next 11 shots, including three very makeable layups. Fortunately for the Mids, all the Rockets other than Mikonowicz missed 12 of their 13 shots in the first quarter. As a result, Navy was only down 13-2 and Gibbons knew the home team was still in the game.
“We knew our shots would eventually fall. We just needed to keep shooting them,” she said. “Our defense leads to our offense, so we needed to box out and get those rebounds.”
Navy, which came into the contest shooting 42% as a team, finally got into a rhythm in the second quarter as junior center Kate Samson’s tough rebound led to a layup by Gibbons. Toledo then committed one of its 22 turnovers with Navy forward Lizzie Holder taking a hard charge at midcourt.
An ensuing turnaround jumper by Samson and a driving layup by Barnett-Gay put a jolt into the crowd and cut the lead to 15-8. However, whenever Navy grabbed some momentum, Toledo would respond behind the play of Mikonowicz or graduate student center Hannah Noveroske.
The 6-foot-5 Noveroske took advantage of Samson being off the floor to make an easy layup that extended Toledo’s lead to 24-12 with just over a minute left before halftime.
Gibbons, who has shown tremendous poise as a plebe, answered with a jump shot and Holder then took another charge to give the Mids the final shot of the first half. Taylor called a play for Smith, who banked a 3-pointer off the glass before the buzzer to get Navy within seven points at halftime.
“It was huge — it kind of got us started especially after having such a poor first half shooting,” Gibbons said of Smith’s shot.
After a Samson jumper opened the third quarter, Toledo had back-to-back possessions that featured uncontested rebounds and several opportunities to score, which prompted Taylor to take an early timeout.
Taylor scanned the final statistics and noted that Toledo finished with a 15-2 edge on second-chance points.
“That can sum up [the game] right there,” he said.
Those second-chance opportunities would keep coming for Toledo in the second half as Noveroske was able to pull down one of her four offensive rebounds and turn it into a layup to give the visitors a 34-24 lead.
However, with just under three minutes left in the third period, Navy went on a 7-0 run highlighted by a 3-pointer, steal and driving layup by Barnett-Gay on back-to-back possessions. Those game-changing moments did not come as a surprise to Taylor.
“She is one of the best competitors I’ve ever been around. She’s just scratching the surface of who she can be,” Taylor said of the All-Patriot League performer.
Leading 34-31, Toledo fed the ball to Mikonowicz, who hit a jumper to close out the scoring in the quarter and, more importantly, halt Navy’s momentum yet again.
Barnett-Gay and Gibbons hit back-to-back threes with seven minutes left to play to cut the deficit to 41-39, but the Mids missed their next four shots. That led to an eight-point Toledo run and a 10-point advantage.
The Rockets were able to close out the game by dominating in the paint, finishing with a 30-15 rebounding advantage in the second half. Mikonowicz and Noveroske combined for 17 of the team’s 59 boards.
Boggess had plenty of praise for the star of the game.
“I spend most of my time reminding Sammi that she is un-guardable,” Boggess said. “She is just a tremendous player, almost too selfless at times. We thought tonight she would have a mismatch in the paint, and then she got going inside and hit a couple of threes for us.”
Boggess also complimented host Navy and its coach.
“I think [Taylor] is a tremendous coach and has done a really good job putting together his roster. The amount of growth his program has made under his leadership has been incredible,” she said. “We knew this was going to be a battle and it was everything we thought it was going to be.”
UP NEXT
Navy Classic
George Mason at Navy
Sunday, 1 p.m.
Stream: ESPN+