HOT SPRINGS, Ark. ?The fifth-seeded South Alabama women’s basketball team saw its tournament run come to an end Monday afternoon as the Lady Jags upset bid of top-seeded Middle Tennessee came up just short, falling 77-71 at the Summit Arena in the semifinals of the 2009 Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
“I thought we played really good today. As a team, we said that we wanted to get to two minutes with a competitive game. Middle’s only played two single-digit games since Christmas. We wanted to get to two minutes and give ourselves a chance. We gave ourselves a chance and had a couple of missed defensive assignments and turnovers. We’re not able to steal it from them. Middle Tennessee is a great basketball team, and we knew that we would have to have a great to superior effort to beat them. I thought our effort was really, really good. it just didn’t quite get to the great or superior level we needed.
USA (21-11) will now wait and see if its season will continue with a WNIT bid. With the win, the Lady Raiders (27-5) advance to the championship game on Tuesday and will face the winner of the No. 2 UALR/No. 3 Denver match up.
Senior forward Ra’Shawna Sippio was 10-of-12 from the field and just missed out on recording her 10th double-double of the season. The Kissimmee, Fla., native’s 22 points tied a career-high. She also added nine rebounds and three steals for USA. Shakira Nettles and Jessica Starling also placed in double digits for the Jags, finishing with 16 and 14 points, respectively.
MTSU All-American candidate Alysha Clark led all scorers with 34 points. The junior was 9-for-19 from the field and knocked down 16 of her 18 attempts at the charity stripe. Clark also added a game-high 16 rebounds. Brandi Brown (15) and Jackie Pickel (14) also finished the game in double figures. Pickel was an impressive 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, three of which coming at crucial junctures of the second half.
The telling stat of the game was from the free throw line. Middle Tennessee was nearly perfect at the stripe, posting a 25-for-28 performance. Conversely, USA was just 4-of-13 at the line, including 4-for-10 in the final period of play.
Holding a three-point lead at halftime, Middle Tennessee pushed its advantage out to 42-35 just over a minute into the half on an Emilyu Queen three-point play. Queen picked up a loose ball of a Jaguar turnover and drove the length of the courting, converting a layup after being fouled. USA didn’t roll over and answered right back with a 10-0 run of its own over the next three-minutes. Nettles found Sippio underneath the basket for an easy layup at the 18:07 mark to ignite the run. Morriah Smith later drove the lane and laid the ball off the glass to give South Alabama a one-point lead with 16 minutes, 27 seconds left on the clock. On the Jags next possession, Sippio hit a pair of free throws to increase the advantage to 45-42.
MTSU’s Pickel ended a four-minute scoreless drought for the Lady Raiders and gave Middle Tennessee the lead again when the junior drained back-to-back three-pointers with just over 13 minutes to go. After Nettles trimmed the deficit to one point on USA’s next trip, Brown connected on a pair of baskets and Clark recorded a layup to push the MTSU advantage out to seven (54-47) ? its largest to that point..
South Alabama, once again didn’t allow Middle Tennessee to get off to the big run and continued to claw its way back and with less than six minutes to go in regulation, again pulled to within one (58-57) on a Starling trey.
As she had done earlier in the half, Pickel provided the big shot for Middle Tennessee following the Starling trifecta. Pickel used a screen by Clark to free herself on the wing and connected with her fourth trey of the day to push Middle Tennessee out to four.
Following the Pickel three-pointer, the Lady Raiders went to Clark, the SBC Player of the Year six straight possessions. The junior forward carded MTSU’s next 10 points, six of which coming at the charity stripe and her layup at the 2:40 mark gave Middle Tennessee its largest lead of the game at 71-62.
South Alabama refused to quit and kept battling down the stretch, pulling as close as four (73-69) on another Starling three-pointer with 16 seconds left on the clock. On the inbounds, the Jaguar defense was able to force a MTSU turnover, but USA was unable to capitalize missing a three-point attempt two seconds later. Following the miss, Chelsia Lymon and Brown hit both of their free throw opportunities in the final seconds, allowing Middle Tennessee to survive and advance.
Middle Tennessee got out to a quick start, knocking down two straight three-pointers within the first minute of play, but South Alabama, as it would the rest of the game, battled back over the next several minutes. USA grabbed its first lead of the afternoon (13-12) with just under 14 minutes remaining in the half after back-to-back layups from Sippio.
Coming out of the first media timeout though, the Lady Raiders quickly reclaimed the lead at 18-13 with six-straight points. Clark’s basket at the 12:24 mark, two of her 15 first half points, gave MTSU the five-point advantage. With Middle Tennessee still holding a 20-15 advantage with under 10 minutes remaining before the intermission, Nettle pulled down an offensive rebound and laid the ball off the glass. Her bucket started a Jaguar run and over the next two-plus minutes, USA outscored Middle Tennessee 9-3. Shaniece Brunner’s put back at the 7:13 mark, put South Alabama back out in front, 24-23.
With five minutes, 30 seconds remaining in the period and the score knotted up at 26, Brown (MT) connected on her second trey of the half to break the tie. The Lady Jags kept it close and over the final five minutes of the first stanza, prevented the big run by Middle Tennessee. USA pulled as close as one on three occasions, before Brown’s two free throws with under a minute to go, sending the Lady Raiders into the locker room with the 38-35 advantage.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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