Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Tusculum Holds Off Late PC Rally To Pick Up Victory On Opening Night Of Conference Season
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - Behind 17 points and 11 assists by senior guard Brooke Underwood, Tusculum withheld a furious late Presbyterian rally to defeat the Lady Blue Hose 80-75 at Pioneer Arena on the opening night of the South Atlantic Conference women's basketball season.
The 2005-06 national statistical assists champion (8.8 apg.) for all three NCAA divisions, Underwood (Knoxville, Tenn.) now has 18 double-double assist games for her career. The Pioneers are 14-4 during her career In games In which she dishes out at least 10 assists.
Presbyterian was led in the loss by Morgan Johnson (Marietta, Ga.), who finished the game with her seventh double-double of the 2006-07 season. Johnson had 21 points and 12 rebounds in the loss to the Pioneers.
Amy Jones (Warthen, Ga.) finished with a game-high 25 points for Presbyterian. The junior guard also had seven assists in the contest, which tied a season-best and was two off of tying her career-best in the department.
The Pioneers opened up the second half by taking their largest lead of the night up to that point at 53-48. The Pioneers would go up at one point by 16, but the Lady Blue Hose cut the lead to 10 at 65-55 with just under 10 minutes left in the contest, causing head coach Jessica Vanco to take a time out to give her team a breather going into the final stretch.
The Lady Blue Hose would whittle the lead to eight at 73-65 with just over two minutes left in the game and eventually pull to within 73-68 on a Kerianne Blease (Saluda, S.C.) three-pointer with 37 seconds left to play in the game.
The Blue Hose would get to within four at 78-74 after a Jones jumper off the backboard. The Pioneers then hit two free throws to go back up by six.
Johnson then made a three point play the hard way to put PC down by just three, but two more Tusculum free throws by Ashli Oliver (Kokomo, Ind.) gave the Pioneers the 80-75 victory.
The Pioneers jumped out to an early 16-4 advantage behind seven points by senior guard Chassity Martin (Salem, Va.). The 12-point lead forced Vanco to take a 30-second timeout at the 15:32 mark.
Vanco's timeout must have been taken at the right juncture because the Lady Blue Hose reeled off six unanswered points to set the score at 16-10. Tusculum's Underwood then nailed two free throws to put TC ahead 18-10.
Presbyterian via a Morgan Johnson jumper from the top of the key would cut the lead to four at 22-18 with just under 8:30 left in the first half, but the Pioneers would continue to extend their lead, forcing Vanco once again at the 6:15 mark of the first stanza to take her first full timeout of the evening with the score 30-22 in favor of the Pioneers.
Presbyterian, aided by three-pointers by Jessica Parris (Inman, S.C.) and Jones, would then mount a 10-4 run and pull to within two at 34-32. Tusculum would not let them get any closer in the half, scoring nine of the next 11 points in the game to go ahead 43-34.
The Pioneers would take a 10-point advantage into halftime when Underwood banked in a trey from the right side with under a second left to garner TC a 46-36 halftime lead. Underwood’s three was just one of six three-point baskets made by the Pioneers in the first half from beyond the arc.
Tusculum tied its season average in the game with nine 3-pointers overall in the contest.
With the victory Tusculum improves to 9-3 on the season overall and 1-0 in SAC play. Presbyterian falls to 5-7 and 0-1 in league play.
The Lady Blue Hose next welcome Mars Hill to the Templeton Center for their first home league contest of the season on Saturday, Jan. 6. Tip-off between the two teams is set for 2 p.m.