By: by Jason Hanes
KENNESAW, Ga. - DeAndrea Bullock, Gia Lockett, and Sametria Gideon each scored a dozen points as the Kennesaw State women's basketball team clinched its spot in the Atlantic Sun Conference Championships with a, 65-62, win over Jacksonville Thursday evening at the KSU Convocation Center.
"I'm very proud of this team," said KSU head coach Colby Tilley. "They've faced a lot of adversity to get to this point, and now we can focus on trying to improve our seed for the tournament."
A close battle throughout, things began to look bleak for the Lady Owls (9-17, 6-11) with about 12 minutes to go in the second half as the Dolphins built their lead to its highest point at 10, 52-42. KSU began to mount a charge, clamping down on defense to go on a 9-1 run over the next seven minutes to pull within two, 53-51.
After the teams swapped baskets, Lockett connected on KSU's only 3-pointer of the evening to cut the JU (8-17, 7-10) lead to one, 57-56. Angie Smith then came up with a steal and drove the basket for a lay-up, giving the Lady Owls a, 58-57, lead with 2:53 left.
JU would tie the score at the charity stripe, and the teams would swap points at the charity stripe to make the score 60-60. KSu regained the advantage after a jumper by Lockett made the score 62-60, but the Dolphins knotted the score seven seconds later. After a JU timeout with 24 seconds remaining, the Dolphins opted to foul Smith with 17 seconds left to try to control their own destiny and win in regulation. Smith threw a minor wrench into the plans though by making both foul shots to give the Lady Owls a 64-62 lead.
The first shot to tie by the Dolphins fell off the iron, and during a scramble for the ball, JU asked for its last timeout to preserve possession and set up a tying play; but with five seconds left, the tallest Lady Owl on the court made the biggest defensive play as Montinique Nixon stole the in-bounds pass and was fouled with four seconds to go.
Nixon made 1-of-2 from the foul line, leaving JU a chance to tie, but the desperation 3-pointer for the Dolphins was off the mark, touching off a celebration for the Lady Owls after a hard fought win.
Gideon fell one rebound shy of a double-double, getting 12 points and nine rebounds. Nixon had eight points to go with eight rebounds, as the Lady Owls out-rebounded JU, 44-32.
"We did a great job of getting rebounds tonight," said Coach Tilley. "Offensively, we did well running plays to isolate our post players down low. We really dug in defensively in the second half and turned the momentum in our favor."
KSU turned the ball over 27 times, but the Lady Owls did a better job of capitalizing on turnovers as KSU scored 28 points on JU's 24 turnovers compared to just 15 points off turnovers for the Dolphins.
Courtney Jackson scored 14 points and grabbed five rebounds to lead JU. Drameka Griggs added 10 points in the losing effort.
KSU earned its bid into the A-Sun Championships following their win and Lipscomb's loss at Florida Gulf Coast Thursday evening. The Lady Owls will face North Florida at the KSU Convocation Center this Saturday at Noon in a tilt that will go a long way towards determining the sixth seed as both teams have a 6-11 conference mark entering that game. Both teams could still wind up at least in the fifth seed as Jacksonville is just one game ahead of both teams.
