Spartans Skin Wildcats

MELBOURNE, Fla. -The University of Tampa Spartans were back in action Sunday afternoon taking on the Fort Valley State University Wildcats and picked up the victory by a score of  70-44.

Tampa kicked off the action where they left off Saturday night as they jumped out to an early 21-6 lead as the first quarter came to a close, and would eventually continue to push their first-half lead to as many as 25, as UT took a 40-15 lead into halftime.

Fort Valley State would come out playing determined basketball, giving their best effort to make the game respectable as they trailed by as many as 28 at one point, but would not come closer than being down 20 points.

Offensively, the Spartans turned in another impressive shooting performance posting a field goal and three-point shooting percentage of 50%, going  21-42 and 11-22 respectively. Leading the way was  Elena de Alfredo with 23 points and three rebounds. Also turning in key performances for Tampa was Juliana Cavallaro with 14 and Teresa Kucera, who came off the bench with nine points and shot 100% from the field. 

Defensively, the Spartans turned in a relentless team effort outrebounding the Wildcats 39-28, with Angela Alvarez leading all players as she pulled in 13 boards. Tampa also notched nine steals on the night. Senior Taylor McVey led all Spartans with three steals.

Following the victory UT improves to 6-6 on the season, Tampa returns to action Saturday, January 2 squaring off against Florida Southern, tipoff is set for 5:30 PM ET. Live stats will be available for fans to follow along at home via Tampaspartans.com.

Fans may follow University of Tampa athletics on Twitter (www.twitter.com/tampaspartans), Facebook (www.facebook.com/tampaspartans), YouTube (youtube.com/utathletics) and Instagram (tampaspartans). UT also offers a free text messaging service that sends text alerts following all Spartan events. To sign up, please register at www.tampaspartans.com