Lady Trojans Fall in Championship Game
March 02, 2009
Playing in the championship game of the Mid-Central College Conference Tournament for a chance to win their first MCC Tournament title since 1998, the No. 25 Taylor women's basketball team took on No. 16 Huntington Monday night. The Lady Trojans came up short, falling in a 65-60 thriller on the road.
With a 21-11 record, Taylor now holds out hope for an at-large selection to the NAIA Division II National Tournament. Huntington (24-6) earned the conference's automatic bid to the National Tournament.
Taylor's tournament fate will be decided on Wednesday at 4 p.m. when the NAIA will release the field of 32 teams on its website at www.naia.org.
In front of a packed house, including a full contingent of Taylor faithful, the game started out slowly on the offensive end for the Lady Trojans as they missed their first three shots and turned the ball over twice in the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Sophomore Allison Reece pulled TU out of their early slump with two straight jumpers from the top of the key. A put back by Nikki Kassebaum at the 13:04 mark gave Taylor its first lead of the night at 8-7 and then a back-and-forth battle began.
Six lead changes and 11 minutes later, a post move by Reece in the paint gave Taylor their largest lead of the half at 23-16. The lead was short lived as the Foresters called a timeout and then went on a 6-0 run. Taylor led by 3 with 25 seconds remaining in the half, but Huntington's Sarah Miller evened the score at 25-25 on a 3 from the deep corner.
Paige Rudolph, who poured in 27 points last Friday in Taylor's upset over top-seeded Bethel, was held scoreless in the first half after picking up two early fouls.
In the first 20 minutes against the Foresters, Taylor was outrebounded 22-13 and the Trojans committed 9 turnovers compared to just 3 for Huntington. The Foresters shot only 28.6 percent (8-for-28) in the first half, but came back to make 64 percent (16-for-25) of their shots in the second half
To start the second half, Taylor made a concerted effort to pound the ball in around the basket. The strategy paid off as Huntington sent Taylor to the line and the Trojans went 6-for-6 from the line in the first four minutes to build a 33-29 lead.
After scoring her first four points of the game, Rudolph then picked up her third and fourth foul in a two-minute span and the senior floor general went to the bench for the next 8 minutes.
Enter freshman Nellie Eskew, who gave the Trojans a huge 18 minutes off the bench with 14 points and 4 rebounds on 6 of 9 shooting.
"We knew Nellie had hurt them earlier in the year in our first game, so we were trying to strategically work her in," said Taylor head coach Tena Krause. "She's been fighting injuries, but was pumped up to play. I really can't say enough about her performance as a freshman tonight."
Taylor controlled the scoreboard for the first 11:30 of the second half until Huntington's Jenna Donaldson hit her team's only 3-pointer of the half to give Huntington a 49-47 lead. A string of 3 straight Taylor turnovers swung the momentum even further in the direction of the Foresters, whose lead grew to 55-48 with 4:11 to play.
The Trojans went back to an obvious strategy of getting the ball to their low-post players to get themselves back in the game. Reece and Bethany Ballard each scored four points in 90 seconds and closed the Huntington lead to just one point with 2:06 remaining.
Trailing by 5 points with 36 seconds left to play, Ballard was fouled after a drive to the basket and connected on both free throws to make the score 63-60 in favor of Huntington.
With only a 6 second difference between the shot clock and game clock, Huntington stalled in the backcourt until a controversial Taylor foul was called near half court with 6 seconds showing on the shot clock.
Huntington made both free throws to run their lead to five points and sealed the program's first MCC Tournament Championship since 1994.
Krause was quick to credit the Foresters defensive effort. "This is a tribute to Huntington, one of the better defensive teams in our conference," said Krause. "We had a hard time getting into rhythm because of that very good defense."
For the game, Taylor shot 45.5 percent on 20 of 44 shooting, including 1-for-8 from three point range. Huntington shot 45.3 percent on 4 of 10 from behind the arc.
Ballard led the Trojans' offense with 19 points and 5 assists. Eskew contributed with 14 points and Reece scored 12. The guard tandem of Nikki Kassebaum and Tasha Marshall each grabbed a game-high 7 rebounds.
The waiting now begins for coach Tena Krause and her team.
"The waiting game is hard. Tonight was our chance for the automatic bid, but we'll hold out hope for a chance to get this group back on the floor together again."