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Nancy Wilson
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Eleven very good minutes got the job done in the Southern Conference tournament semifinals, but it might take more than that for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team to get back to the NCAA tournament.
During a highlight reel-worthy stretch Sunday against fifth-seeded College of Charleston, the top-seeded Lady Mocs dominated every phase of the game and went on to a fairly easy 68-53 win Sunday afternoon.
The Lady Mocs (28-3), winners of 23 straight games, are now only one win away from advancing to the NCAA tournament, courtesy of what would be a third straight SoCon tournament title. All that stands in their way is No. 2 seed Western Carolina in today’s 5 p.m. championship game.
“I think that we’re just looking to top it off,” said UTC senior Laura Hall, who was 3-for-4 from 3-point range and scored 15 points.
“It’s very exciting, everything we’ve done and accomplished, and I think that we don’t want to be done yet.”
UTC has won 20 straight games against conference opponents, and Western Carolina is the only SoCon team that has stayed within single digits during UTC’s run. In their regular-season finale Feb. 28, the Lady Mocs beat the Catamounts 72-66. Western Carolina held off sixth-seeded Elon 72-66 in the second semifinal Sunday.
Charleston (14-16) got off to a solid start and led 6-0 early before Brooke Hand hit a 3-pointer to get UTC on the scoreboard. Hand was 3-for-5 on 3s and scored nine points. For the game, the Lady Mocs finished 9-for-17 from 3-point range.
Charleston led 15-11 with 12:57 to play in the first half following Nikki Williams’ drive through the lane, but that was the high-water mark for the Cougars. Alex Anderson, who scored all 15 of her points in the first half, scored inside and moments later, Shanara Hollinquest tied the game at 15 with a layup.
Hall was fouled while hitting a pull-up jumper that gave UTC the lead for good, letting out a big yell and a fist pump before converting the three-point play. In all, the Lady Mocs scored 18 unanswered points for a 29-15 lead with 7:32 left in the half following LaCondra Mason’s 3 from the left corner.
“It wasn’t anything in particular,” Anderson said. “We were just hitting our shots and playing good defense.”
Williams scored for Charleston to make it 29-17, but UTC scored the next eight points and led 37-17 with 1:23 remaining before halftime. The Lady Mocs shot .571 percent from the floor in the first half, held the Cougars to .333 and outscored Charleston 20-8 in the paint.
“I really think what happened, as much as anything, is that the physical ability of (UTC’s) posts never allowed us to go into our posts,” Cougars coach Nancy Wilson said. “You’re not going to beat them with only outside shots.”
The surge delighted the 250 or so UTC fans who made the North Charleston Coliseum their own, outnumbering Cougars fans by about 2-to-1. There wasn’t much for either side to cheer about in the second half as the Cougars tried to get back in the game and couldn’t.
Meanwhile, the Lady Mocs weren’t quite as sharp and needed to do little more than keep the clock moving to ensure a spot in today’s final.
Williams finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Cougars.
John Frierson is in his fifth year at the Times Free Press and fifth year covering University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletics. The bulk of his time is spent covering Mocs football, but he also writes about women’s basketball and the big-picture issues and news involving the athletic department. A native of Athens, Ga., John grew up a few hundred yards from the University of Georgia campus. Instead of becoming a Bulldog he attended Ole ...
