CCGA women survive at home, advance to league semifinals
CCG Sports Information
BOX SCORE
Brunswick, Ga. - The College of Coastal Georgia women's basketball team pulled out an 84-79 victory Tuesday night over Keiser University in the quarterfinals of the Sun Conference tournament at Howard Coffin Gym.
Trailing by seven points going into the fourth quarter on a night when they were far from their best, the Mariners still trailed the Seahawks by 73-66 with six minutes left in the final stanza.
But with seniors
Brianna Gipson and
Ayshia Baker leading the charge, the Mariners came storming back to tie the score 73-all on a Gipson lay-in and they would outscore Keiser 11-6 over the final 4:32 of the game to survive the scare on their home floor and advance to the tournament semifinals.
"Early in the year, we lose a game like this," said a relieved Coastal Georgia coach
Roger Hodge in his office after the close call against the Seahawks. "We showed a lot of character and fortitude. Our kids have grown up and matured a lot."
The win was the 20
th of the season for the Mariners who are now 20-10 overall. The program had not won 20 games since the 2013-14 season when they won a school-record 25 in the third season for the program.
Coastal Georgia finished third in the league standings in the regular season and thus was the No. 3 seed for the conference tournament which gets a team a home game in the quarterfinals.
Keiser, which won its final two conference games to get the sixth and last spot in the league tournament, finishes its season 14-16 with the loss to the Mariners.
Coastal Georgia advances to the tournament semifinals for the second straight year and will play No. 2 seed St. Thomas University in Friday's semifinals which will be played at Southeastern, the tournament's top seed as the regular-season champion.
Southeastern and Florida Memorial will face off in the other semifinal. Florida Memorial, the No. 5 seed, advanced to the semifinals with a 76-70 win at No. 4 seed Ave Maria in the other quarterfinal game on Tuesday.
During the regular season, the Mariners and Seahawks split their two meetings with both teams winning on their home floor. So, the quarterfinal contest was essentially the rubber match in the season series and obviously the biggest of the three games.
Coastal Georgia led by as much as seven late in the first period and took a 28-20 lead early in the second quarter, but Keiser continued to chip away at its deficit and would take a 31-30 lead on three made foul shots by Kelly Meade with 4:21 remaining in the opening half.
The teams would be tied twice more prior to halftime before Coastal Georgia took a 38-35 lead into the intermission break.
The third quarter is when Keiser started to frustrate the Mariners who were battling foul trouble, their customary defensive lapses and also having a hard time playing at the slow pace that the Seahawks were dictating.
The result was Keiser going on top by as much as eight points before taking a 62-55 cushion into the closing quarter.
With their season on the line, the Mariners fell behind 64-56 early in the final stanza, but with a quick run, they pulled within 64-63 with less than two minutes expired in the quarter.
Again, though, Keiser surged ahead by 71-64 with three different players scoring the ball. But again, the Mariners battled back to deadlock the score at 73-73 on a
Khaila McMorris three-pointer, a Gipson bucket and a lay-in by Baker with just over four minutes to go.
The teams were still tied at 76-76 with 1:59 to play when the Mariners took charge for good. Gipson hit a jump shot after a pass from McMorris and got fouled on the shot, too. She would finish off the three-point play with a free throw to give the Mariners a three-point lead.
Following an offensive foul on Keiser, the Mariners went up 81-76 on a driving basket by freshman
Ja'Lisya Glover who was huge off the bench for the Mariners.
Keiser scored on its next trip on a Donivan Dyson basket with 32 seconds left that made it 81-78, but a Gipson free throw a few seconds later made it a two-possession game again.
Midori Long made one of two free throws for Keiser on its next trip to again make it a three-point game, but
Solrun Gisladottir would convert a pair of foul shots for the Mariners to seal the win as the Mariners led by the final 84-79 count with five seconds left.
Gipson finished with 25 points to lead the Mariners. Glover, who was forced into playing considerable minutes with Coastal Georgia's starting backcourt battling foul trouble, scored a season-high 20 points off the bench after having only reached double figures twice in the regular season.
"If not for her, we don't win tonight," Hodge said of his freshman guard.
Following a slow start, Baker came to life after halftime, especially in the fourth-quarter rally, to finish with 15 points and a team-best 7 rebounds while also blocking two shots to add to her single-season record of 65 blocks.
Antigonie Sanabria led all scorers with 26 points for Keiser. Dyson, the team's leading scorer for the season, finished with 22 while Long finished with 12 points and 10 boards.
Coastal Georgia shot 60.4 percent (29-48) for the game.
"Keiser had a good game plan," Hodge said. "They did not let our pressure bother them at all. They played well and we weren't at the top of our game. We dealt with game-related adversity such as foul trouble and so forth. Our kids overcame a lot tonight. I'm really proud of them."