By: By Libby Knight
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Kennesaw State women's basketball team will enter the 2014 Atlantic Sun Championship as the No. 7 seed and will travel to Deland, Fla., to face No. 2 Stetson on Tuesday, March 11 at 7 p.m. ET after taking a 50-46 setback to North Florida in the regular season finale for both teams on Saturday afternoon (March 8).
The Owls (6-23, 4-14) advanced to their fifth-straight A-Sun Championship after finishing seventh in the final season standings. The Hatters secured the second seed after falling to Florida Gulf Coast, 74-73, in overtime as the Eagles earned the outright regular season championship with their victory.
"I am grateful that we made the tournament," said head coach
Nitra Perry. "We definitely have to do some things differently to play a very good Stetson basketball team. We are going to go in there and keep talking about 40 minutes of basketball and competing."
Junior guard
Kristina Wells led the Owls with 12 points to go along with five rebounds, three assists and three steals.
"Today's outcome again comes back down to the maturity level of our team," added Perry. "We are still not quite understanding how to put away a team that did not have the energy at the beginning of the game, that we then gave them the confidence, which has been a theme over the last four or five games. Just not paying attention to detail and our leadership was questionable today. It came down to the will to win and we did not have the will today."
Both teams traded baskets through the opening minutes of the half as neither team could build a lead larger than two through the first 10 minutes of the game.
The Owls jumped out to a 15-12 lead on a free throw from redshirt-senior
Lisa Capellan, but a UNF (6-23, 2-16) three-pointer sent the game into its fifth tie at 15-15 with 3:32 left on the clock.
KSU then ended the half on a mini 6-2 run on three-pointers from Wells and freshman guard
Deandrea Sawyers to take a 21-17 into the locker room at halftime.
Out of the break the Ospreys evened up the contest for the seventh time at 23-23 with just under 17 minutes left, before a 7-0 run capped by a three-pointer from junior guard
Bria Young gave the Owls their largest lead of the game at 30-23.
UNF responded with a 13-6 run of its own to tie up the contest again at 36-36 with seven minutes remaining. A three-pointer from freshman
Aareon Smith pushed the Owl lead back to five at 41-36, but the Ospreys continued to battle back.
With the game tied 46-46 with just 26 ticks left on the clock, Wells was assessed with a technical foul after touching the ball while the Ospreys were inbounding. UNF's Ki Conner then converted four-straight freebies to lock up the 50-46 win.
Sawyers and Smith each poured in eight points for the Owls, while the Nashville, Tenn., native added three assists.
The Owls won the battle of the boards 38-35, with Sawyers and Capellan leading the way with six each in the contest.
Destinee Smith had a game-high 15 points for the Ospreys.
KSU will now travels to Deland, Fla., to face No. 2 Stetson in the first round of the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship on Tuesday, March 11. Game time is set for 7 p.m. ET and can be seen on ASun.TV.
To keep up with the latest Kennesaw State women's basketball news follow the team on Twitter
@KSUOwlNation and @
KSUOwlsWBB or by liking Kennesaw State University on
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