ANNAPOLIS, MD — Maryland women’s basketball’s leading scorer has felt predetermined in practically every game this season. Junior Kaylene Smikle has held that distinction all but once this year.
But when the Terps entered Sunday’s final quarter against Toledo with a sizable advantage, ‘Who would finish as the leading scorer?’ was one of Maryland’s only questions. The answer was Saylor Poffenbarger.
Five fourth-quarter points from Poffenbarger topped off a season-high 19-point performance, which propelled No. 10 Maryland to a 92-70 win over Toledo at the Naval Academy’s Alumni Hall.
“What you saw from Saylor is what we’ve seen all summer long,” coach Brenda Frese said. “She’s an impactful player — someone that we need to have on the floor. She just connects everyone together.”
Sunday’s win pushed Maryland’s record to 8-0 on the season, its best start since the 2018-19 campaign.
Toledo (4-2) started its regularly undersized lineup on Sunday, and the Terps took advantage in the early going.
24 of Maryland’s 25 first-quarter points were scored inside the paint. That mold wasn’t broken until senior Shyanne drilled a three from the wing for the Terps’ first points of the second period.
The Terps later finished with 70 points in the paint, to match Toledo’s overall total on the evening.
“Today we had the post advantage so coming in and getting those paint touches just opens up the floor for everything else,” Poffenbarger said.
Despite Maryland’s efficiency down low, the Rockets kept pace during the first ten minutes.
Toledo turned its defensive weakness into an offensive strength, by using agile off-ball movement to create open looks.
“They were spreading the floor harder than us. … We weren’t picking up the ball to be able to send it to the sidelines,” Frese said. “They were very aggressive and credit them, they took us out of our press.”
The Rockets shot 75 percent from behind the arc — and from the field overall — in a 21-point first quarter. Both offenses cooled in the following period, but one’s dropoff was far more pronounced than the other.
Toledo made just four of its 11 field goals, whilst Maryland still shot it at an impressive 69 percent clip.
Sarah Te-Biasu finished Maryland’s uber-efficient first half with a dazzling dribble move as time was winding down.
The VCU transfer was isolated with a defending Cadence Dykstra on the wing. Te-Biasu tried driving left and into the paint, but Dykstra cut off the lane, forcing the Maryland guard to switch hands as she reset.
The graduate guard then circled to her right, before deliberately hesitating at the free throw line. Here, Te-Biasu switched her dribble back to her left hand. The nifty moves had finally opened up a lane.
With Dykstra a step behind her, Te-Biasu accelerated to the rim and finished with her left hand to put Maryland’s first-half point total above 50. The Terps held Toledo shotless on the ensuing possession to take a 51-33 lead into the break.
Maryland’s third-quarter scuffles in Saturday’s game against George Mason, allowed the Patriots to claw their way back into the contest. The Terps shirked any similar struggles on Sunday.
Bench contributions proved critical as Poffenbarger, Mir McLean, and Bri McDaniel, combined for just under half of Maryland’s 17 third-quarter points.
On the other end of the floor, Maryland’s defense continued adjusting as the game went on. The Terps stymied Toledo’s offense after the first quarter, as the Rockets couldn’t rekindle their early rhythm until late in the fourth — at which point the result was already a formality.
In a moment symbolic of Sunday’s win, guard Ella Weaver drove to the basket inside the final 15 seconds. She casually floated a layup toward the rim, but the attempt never came close to falling.
Poffenbarger emphatically whacked Weaver’s floater out of bounds, drawing impressed reactions from the sparse crowd. It was the Arkansas transfer’s only block of the evening, but she quietly grabbed 10 rebounds for her first double-double in a Maryland uniform.
The Terps quickly return home from this weekend’s Navy Classic. They’ll take on Mount Saint Mary’s at the XFINITY Center this Tuesday, at 7 p.m. Daniel Stein and Alexa Wooten will have the call for WMUC Sports.
