Nakeia Burks rebounded her own miss and made a layup in the final minute to give the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga the lead for good Thursday night at McKenzie Arena, helping the Mocs finish a hard-fought 58-52 win against Mercer.
Burks' basket was the play the Mocs needed at the end of a game in which they trailed by as many as nine points and were ahead by as many as 10, struggling to secure or maintain a lead.
With the score tied at 52, though, Burks' putback basket with 57 seconds remaining ended that trouble. After UTC put together a defensive stop, Bria Dial made a layup with 19 seconds remaining and hit two free throws with 14 seconds left to seal a big Southern Conference win for the Mocs, who remain a half-game out of first place in the league standings with two games to play in the regular season.
UTC (9-17, 8-4) was led in scoring by Dial with 17 points - she also grabbed eight rebounds - and Eboni Williams added 14 points and Lakelyn Bouldin 10. Burks scored just four, but she led the Mocs with nine rebounds and three assists.
Bouldin, a senior who prepped at Van Buren County, surpassed 1,400 points for her UTC career, moving to 1,409 by the end of the game and surpassing Julie Copeland for eighth on the program's career scoring list. Williams has surpassed 500 career points in her second season with the Mocs.
Shannon Titus had 20 points and 11 rebounds and Summer Pahl 14 and 10 for the Bears (6-20, 3-8), who beat UTC 55-48 last month in Macon, Georgia.
The Mocs faced the Bears this time off back-to-back wins at Furman and at Wofford that put UTC in the thick of the race for the SoCon's regular-season title. But the Mocs struggled early against Mercer, a team near the bottom of the SoCon standings, trailing 13-10 after the first quarter.
UTC used a 10-0 run to go ahead in the second, with Dial scoring seven points in the period to help the Mocs take a 29-23 into halftime. Titus scored nine points for Mercer in the third, though, to help the Bears tie the score at 42 heading into the final quarter.
The fourth was a grind for both offenses as they combined to shoot 7-for-24 in the period before Burks and Dial sealed the victory and UTC's first three-game winning streak of the season.
Thursday's win also gave the UTC women a good start to their three-game homestand to end the regular season. They are back at McKenzie at 2 p.m. Saturday to take on Samford in the opening game of a doubleheader; the UTC men will host Mercer in the second game.
THURSDAY'S STAR
It's hard to ignore Dial's performance, but Burks was a difference-making player. On a night when she wasn't scoring, the fifth-year senior found other ways to get it done for UTC. Her rebounding and assists helped keep the Mocs in the game, and her late bucket came when they needed it most.
STANDOUT STAT
For just the second time this season, UTC held an opponent to no made 3-pointers, with Mercer going 0-for-2 from beyond the arc. The last to not make any 3s was - the same Bears, who went 0-for-5 on Jan. 25 but got the win that day.
TURNING POINT
With UTC trailing by three with time running down, Williams drove to the basket and made a layup while drawing the foul before making her free throw to tie the game at 50. Mercer took another lead on a layup by Pahl, but Williams' play got UTC in position for Dial and Burks to finish off the win.
WHAT IT MEANS
The Mocs are still in control of their fate in the SoCon standings with just more than a week left in the regular season. The Mocs remain a half-game behind UNC Greensboro and Samford, which are tied atop the league standings, and UTC has moved in front of Wofford, which lost 49-45 Thursday at UNCG. The Mocs will have a big test Saturday when Samford visits, but a win could put them in position to take one of the top two seeds in the SoCon tournament - and perhaps even capture the regular-season title.
QUOTABLE
Burks on continuing to make plays when her shot isn't falling: "I honestly just think of what I can do to help my team. If that's not offensively, that's perfectly fine. If I have to clean up on the boards, I'll clean up on the boards. If I have to play good defense, that's what I'll do. I think it's just a mindset that I have, and that I think we all have."
Dial on continuing to fight with the game in the balance late: "We just had to focus on defense, focus on us and focus on doing the little things right and don't focus on them. There was a time when we couldn't score, but we just had to come together and getting that next stop."
UTC coach Katie Burrows on her team's opportunity to finish strong: "I told the team before the game today, 'You guys are in control of this entire situation.' If they just come out and play they way they've been taught and the way they know how to play to win these ballgames and just worry about us, we can give ourselves a chance. We're perfectly in control of our destiny here. We just have to come out ready to play."
Contact Jim Tanner at JFTanner@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @JFTanner.