Lady Mocs still reign

slideshow: Lady Mocs win SoCon

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — There were no surprises Monday involving the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team, which really is no surprise at all.

The Lady Mocs built a double-digit lead, fought off a Western Carolina rally and held strong at the end. That was the script for their two regular-season matchups as well, but this was the one that mattered.

With the 71-59 win at the North Charleston Coliseum, the top-seeded Lady Mocs won their third consecutive Southern Conference tournament championship and secured another spot in the NCAA tournament.

“To me it’s special because there’s no more coming back. You don’t want to lose it your senior year,” said UTC senior Alex Anderson, who was named tournament MVP after finishing with 25 points and 11 rebounds Monday.

Only four women’s teams have ever gone through the SoCon regular season and tournament without a loss. Appalachian State did it first, in 1996, and the Lady Mocs (29-3) have now done it every other season since 2003-04. The Lady Mocs won’t find out where they’re going in the NCAA tournament until the brackets are released next Monday.

“I wanted it for these seniors so badly,” Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore said. “I wanted them to get another shot at (the NCAA tournament).”

Western Carolina (25-8), the No. 2 seed, led 8-5 early, but as UTC so often does, it hits its offensive stride after a couple of minutes and takes charge of the game. Anderson scored twice inside to give UTC the lead, and then senior point guard Laura Hall, who played perhaps the finest game of her career, drove through the lane for two of her season-high 22 points.

The Catamounts’ defensive strategy against UTC is to guard the perimeter and keep the Lady Mocs from knocking down a lot of 3-pointers. That can leave a whole in the middle, which Hall often exploited by driving and shooting or passing to her teammates.

She drove the baseline and fired the ball out to Jenaya Wade-Fray for a 3-pointer from the left corner that put UTC up 16-10. Powered by the play of Hall and Anderson, the Lady Mocs went on to build a double-digit lead. Shanara Hollinquest’s short jumper put UTC up 33-20 with a little more than five minutes left in the half.

The Lady Mocs didn’t score again before halftime, but all the Catamounts could manage was an Ashley Pellom floater, which made it 33-22 UTC at the half.

“Our kids really stepped up and did a good job (on defense),” Moore said. “That kept us in the game.”

Hall hit a pair of free throws early in the second half for UTC’s largest lead of the game, 39-24. But like everyone familiar with this series expected, the Catamounts made a run and put the pressure on the Lady Mocs.

Emily Clarke’s layup with 10:33 remaining cut the lead to 46-41, but UTC, as it has every time it has been challenged during what is now a 24-game win steak, regrouped and stopped the slide.

After Clarke scored, Anderson hit a 14-footer and then one of two free throws. On UTC’s next possession, after stopping the Catamounts, Erin Ogan nailed a jumper to push the lead to 51-41.

Ogan, who played 26 minutes off the bench and finished with seven points and six rebounds, helped seal the win with a 3-pointer from the left wing that put UTC up 59-47 with 3:42 remaining.

The Lady Mocs were 12-for-14 from the free-throw line in the final 8:46, which helped them win their seventh tournament title in the past eight seasons.

“For me to contribute to this is just amazing,” said Ogan, a junior. “It gets better and better every year.”