Lady Pilot's comeback falls short, OLLU claims title
March 05, 2012
WAXAHACHIE, Tex. - The LSU Shreveport Lady Pilots basketball team rallied in the second half but fell short as the Our Lady of the Lake University Lady Saints claimed the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament title with a 76-73 win over LSUS at the Schaeffer Center on the campus of Our Lady of the Lake University.
The sports cliché "It's hard to beat a team three times in a season" proved to be true once again on Monday night as The Lady Saints built a 13-point lead at the half outscoring the Lady Pilots 48-38. LSUS struggled in the first half to keep pace with the Lady Saints as they led by as much as 14 in the opening half as they shot 45% from the field topping 41% of LSUS.
The Lady Pilots finished at 45% for the game from the field in a game in which they never held the lead and outscored OLLU 38-28 in the second half but it was not enough. OLLU dominated the boards 48-37 with 20 offensive rebounds giving the Lady Saints 40 points in the paint compared to 28 for the Lady Pilots.
LSUS trimmed the lead down to four with five minutes to go in the first half with an 11-2 run only to be erased by an OLLU 12-3 run to end the half.
The OLLU lead slowly slipped away as the Lady Pilots crawled their way back into the contest. LSUS trimmed the OLLU lead down to single digits several times in the second half. Amanda Fontenot drained back-to-back three-pointers to cut the lead down to eight with nine minutes to play.
Sharde Henry scored two of her game-high 22 points with a layup to cut the OLLU lead down to three with 2:28 to play in regulation. The Lady Saints had a five-point lead and looked to be on their way to the championship when LSUS' Jennifer Hicks drained a three as she was fouled and made the shot from the charity stripe as she cut the lead down to one, 74-73 with 30 seconds to play.
The Lady Saints' Nashae Owens made both free throws to extend the lead back to three with 22 seconds to play. LSUS called a timeout with 16 seconds to go and chose to attempt one shot to tie the game as they ran the clock to take the game's final shot.
OLLU played stellar defense and did not give the Lady Pilots a good look from downtown to end the game.
In addition to Henry, the Lady Pilots finished with three more in double figures as Hicks had 14, Fontenot 12 and Jenna Diakos 11 who was the game's leading rebounder with 9 boards.
