Feb. 24, 2009

Final Stats

The Lady Racers were looking to add to their excellent season on Tuesday night as they welcomed Mt. Vernon Nazarene into The Garage for the first round of the AMC tournament. The Lady Racers could not overcome cold first half shooting as they were knocked out of postseason play with a 74-71 loss.

The Lady Racers faced Mt. Vernon twice earlier in the season. The series was split as Mt. Vernon won the first meeting on Nov. 15 with a final of 65-45. UNOH countered with a victory at home on January 17th with a final score of 80-63. The matchup was set as UNOH was the #4 seed while Mt. Vernon was the #5 seed in the AMC tournament, with the winner to take on #1 seed Walsh.

Mt. Vernon quickly jumped out to a 6-0 run to start the game, and then eventually took a 17-7 lead in the first 8 minutes of the game. The Lady Racers got things cooking as they countered with a run of their own, a 13-1 run that gave them a 2 point lead at 22-20 with 5:52 left in the half. The Lady Racers entered the break trailing 34-30.

In the first 4 minutes of the second half, the Cougars used a 8-0 run to extend the lead back to 10 points at 45-35. The Lady Racers would fall to their largest deficit of the game at 15 points with 10:56 remaining in the game.

UNOH would make things interesting down the stretch as they would cut the lead to 4 with 5:05 left in their season. The Lady Racers would let the Cougars push the lead back to 9 with 2:20 on the clock, but would get back within 3 with 1:01 left. Without a crucial stop down the stretch, the Lady Racers were forced to foul and could not get any closer as the buzzer sounded and it was the end of the game and a fantastic season for the Lady Racers.

Leading the way for UNOH was Freshman Ashley Jackson as she scored 13 points, dished out 5 assists and added 5 steals to her season total. Freshman Amanda Francis, who was named AMC Player of the Week for last week's contests, scored 10 points. Junior Abbie Clifton and Sophomore Jenna Blackburn added 10 points as well. Sophomore Kristi Platfoot grabbed 10 rebounds on the night.

The Lady Racers finish their season 17-13, a major improvement from last season as the Lady Racers finished 7-21 in the 07-08 campaign.