Lady Trojans Headed to MCC Championship
February 27, 2009
Paige Rudolph scored a season-high 27 points and led the fourth-seeded Taylor women's basketball team to a 66-54 victory Friday at top seed Bethel College in the semifinals of the Mid-Central College Conference Tournament.
Taylor (21-10), ranked No. 25 in the latest NAIA Top-25 Poll, will advance to play at No. 16 Huntington (23-6) Monday night at 7 p.m. against the Foresters, the tournament's No. 2 seed. The two teams split their two earlier meetings this season, each picking up a win on their home court.
Draining shots all over the court all night long, Rudolph finished 10-for-11 from the floor, including 4 of 5 from three point range. The senior from Evansville, Indiana, grabbed 7 boards to share rebounding honors with sophomore Allison Reece.
"Paige really stepped up in a big way for us tonight. That's the kind of player she is," said Taylor head coach Tena Krause. "I just told her to ‘keep leading', and that's all she needed to hear. She was focused and got the rest of the team to follow her."
Bethany Ballard scored 13 and Allison Reece scored 12 on 8 of 10 from the free throw line. Tasha Marshall was one short of a career-high with 6 assists.
Ballard, an All-MCC selection, was plagued with foul trouble most of the game. After playing only 7 minutes in the first half, she picked up her fourth foul with over 9 minutes left in the game. The junior returned for the final 5:22 and played an integral role in the win.
"Bethany did a tremendous job of playing disciplined when she was in the game, even with the foul trouble," said Krause. "I told her that if we were going to win this game, we needed her on the floor."
An aggressive Taylor defense swarmed the Pilots throughout the game, forcing 9 Pilot turnovers in the first half alone. For the game, Bethel made 10 three-pointers, but it took them 36 attempts to do so.
"Bethel is No. 2 in the nation in three-point shooting. Our game plan was to force them to shoot more 2's than 3's," said Krause. "They made quite a few, but I thought we did a pretty good job of limiting their open looks at the basket."
One of Rudolph's four first-half 3's gave Taylor their largest lead of the first half at 25-18. After leading for all but 6 minutes of the half, Krause's squad took a 34-31 lead to the locker room.
After three straight baskets by Taylor tri-captains Rudolph, Ballard, and Nikki Kassebaum to start the second half, the Trojan lead grew to double digits at 41-31 just 2:47 into the half.
Bethel cut the lead to 4 points on multiple occasions and 3 points once with 2:33 to play, but Taylor made 8 of 9 from the free throw line down the stretch to give Taylor their first win on Bethel's home floor since February 21, 2006.
Taylor was able to overcome 20 offensive rebounds for Bethel by holding the Pilots to just 28.4 percent shooting for the game. The Trojans pumped in 52.6 percent of their second half shots for a game total of 46.8 percent. Bethel ended the game with a 40-35 rebounding advantage.
Bethel (22-8) was led by 21 points from Mandy Yoder. MCC Player of the Year Amber Peters was held to just 4 points, but the senior came up with 15 rebounds. The loss snapped a nine-game win streak for the Pilots.
The winner of Monday's MCC Championship Game at Huntington will earn the automatic bid to the 2009 NAIA Division II National Championships in Sioux City, Iowa, March 11-17.