Spartans Fall As Sycamores Surge Late For 80-72 Win
11/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 21, 2009
SPARTANBURG, S.C. - While the USC Upstate women's basketball team turned to junior forward Chelsea McMillan (East Gadsden, Fla./Santa Fe C.C.) and a balanced guard attack to lead the way past Indiana State, the Sycamores used the duo of guard Kelsey Luna and forward Shannon Thomas to score 52 points and lead the Sycamores to a narrow 80-72 win over the Spartans on Saturday afternoon in non-conference action at the G.B. Hodge Center.
McMillan had another outstanding game for the Spartans as she posted the first 20-point game of the year for Upstate (2-2 overall), scoring 20 and adding nine rebounds and four blocks. Along the way, she crossed the 400-career point mark and also became the sixth in school history to reach 50 career blocked shots.
Yet it was Indiana State's Kelsey Luna that ended up icing the game, as the Preseason All-Missouri Valley Conference guard racked up 33 points, 22 in the second half, and added seven rebounds, four steals and three assists. She hit all 12 of her free throw attempts, including icing the game with eight in the last minute of play, helping Indiana State improve to 3-0 on the year.
"We have to give credit to Indiana State," Upstate head coach Tammy George said. "They are a very, very good program and they showed why (Saturday). Luna is an outstanding player and she just answered the bell every time we took a lead or got close."
Down by nine with 4:15 to go, Upstate charged back into the game thanks to an 8-2 run to close within three points at 72-69 with 1:08 left after freshman Lauren McRoberts (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) laid in a bucket on the tail end of a fast break. From there, though, the game belonged to Luna, who hit eight free throws while Upstate managed just a 3-pointer by senior Courtney Hawkins (Greer, S.C./Greer), who hit the shot with five seconds left.
"There are a lot of things that when we look back on this game, we are going to wish we had another chance at," George said. "We started out sluggish. We fought back into the game, and I am proud of our team to do that after being down 12, but we made a few mistakes that an experienced team, like Indiana State, won't make late in the game. We will take this and learn from it and get ready for the next game."
The Sycamores jumped out on the Spartans, taking a 16-4 lead after a 3-pointer from Deja Mattox, but Upstate fought back, with sophomore Kendra Wallace (Hurricane, W.Va./Nitro) hitting a three to answer. Back-to-back buckets from McMillan cut the lead to three points at 18-15 with 12:11 left in the half and a 3-pointer from freshman Tee'Ara Copney (Asheville, N.C./T.C. Roberson) made it a two-point game, but a 9-0 run from the Sycamores built the lead back to 11 points with 8:05 left. From there, the two teams battled back and forth, with Upstate cutting the lead to six twice more before senior Koko Richardson (Mary Esther, Fla./Santa Fe C.C.) banked in a trey as time expired on the half to once again make it a six-point lead, as Indiana State held a 45-39 lead at the end of the stanza.
While the first half was paced by Indiana State's energy, Upstate came out of the locker room ready to go, as Hawkins nailed a 3-pointer just 15 seconds in. After a layup by Shannon Thomas, who finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds and six blocks as Indiana State's top post presence, jumpers from Hawkins and McMillan cut the lead to one. After a timeout and a missed 3-pointer by the Sycamores, Hawkins found McMillan on an outlet pass and McMillan laid in the fast-break bucket, giving the Spartans a 48-47 lead with 16:37 left.
The two squads fought each other tooth-and-nail for the next eight minutes, with neither team gaining more than a 3-point advantage until finally, Luna hit a 3-pointer with 8:11 left and after an Upstate turnover, Kelsie Cooley hit a layup to make it a five-point game. Another turnover led to another three from Luna and a third turnover led to another layup from Luna, giving the Sycamores a 67-57 lead with 5:46 left.
The Sycamores kept the lead at nine points until the 3:31 mark when Hawkins connected on a trey. After a layup by Luna, two free throws from McMillan and one from Hawkins cut the lead to 72-67 with 1:48 left, setting up McRoberts layup and Luna's game-closing free throws.
Hawkins finished with 12 points, as she is now tied with Stephanie Feyes (2001-05) for 11th in school history with 1,0401 career points. She also added three assists, a block and three steals to move into a tie for eighth in school history in career steals with 158, tying Dawn Bowden (1985-89) and Kia Manuel (2000-04).
Upstate got several solid performances, as Wallace posted nine points on 4-for-9 shooting from the field. She also added four rebounds and two steals. Richardson posted eight points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal and McRoberts notched eight points, four rebounds, three assists, a career-high three blocks and a steal. Sophomore Lelsey Daniel (Collinwood, Tenn./Collinwood) posted seven points, five assists and a steal, junior Sharniece Wadelington (Greenville, S.C./UNC Greensboro) added three points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals and Copney posted five points, three steals and two assists.
Mattox finished with 12 points and four rebounds and Cooley added eight points and eight rebounds for the Sycamores, which posted nine blocked shots and managed to win despite being outshot from the field, 41.4 percent (29-for-70 for Upstate) to 39.7 percent (25-for-63 for the Sycamores). The Sycamores did win the battle on the free-throw line, though, shooting 84.6 percent, hitting 22-of-26 shots from the line while Upstate hit just 7-of-11 from the line (63.6 percent).
Upstate gets set to get back on the court on Tuesday when they make the short trip to in-state rival, S.C. State. Tip time in Orangeburg, S.C., is set for 7 p.m.
Notes:
• The Spartans are 1-7 all-time on Nov. 18.
• Upstate is 8-6 in the D-I era (since 2007) in the month of November.
• Upstate is 4-6 all-time in games after it gave up 100 points.
• Junior Chelsea McMillan became the 52nd player in school history to reach 400 points in her career with her fourth of 20 points on the night.
• Junior Chelsea McMillan became the sixth player to reach 50 blocked shots in an Upstate career with her third of four on the night ... She is the first player in the D-I era to reach the mark.
• Senior Courtney Hawkins has posted 49 career double-digit scoring efforts with her 12 points on Saturday.
• Upstate is 1-2 all-time against teams from Indiana. The game was Upstate's first against a Missouri Valley Conference team.
• For the second straight game, senior Courtney Hawkins scored all her points in one half. She scored 13 in the first half at Virginia and had 12, all in the second half, on Saturday.
• Sophomore Kendra Wallace is now tied with Shannon Pallardy (2002-06) for seventh in school history with 79 career 3-pointers.
• Kelsey Luna's 33 points were the most for an Upstate opponent since ETSU's Siarre Evans posted 35 on Feb. 23, 2009, a 90-84 win for the Lady Bucs ... Luna's 12-for-12 performance from the free-throw line set a new DI-era opponents' record against the Spartans for free throws made.
