Lady Eagles Rally Comes Up Short in Jacksonville Win
11/9/2007 5:29:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The season opener for both teams,
“Shawnda played hard,” said 12th year head coach Rusty Cram. “She gave us some good minutes, certainly. It's good to see her back and giving the minutes that she did.”
The Dolphins jumped out to an early 10-2 lead that was sparked by a bucket in the paint by Virginia Gregoire.
Strong Jacksonville shooting helped the home team produce its largest lead of the game, a 17-point, 29-12 advantage with 5:20 remaining in the first half.
Down 32-16 with 4:08 remaining, the Lady Eagles came back with a spurt sparked by a pair of Atwood free throws. A fast break layup, then a key rebound by Atwood helped close the deficit down to 11 points with 2:50 remaining.
The Dolphins led 37-23 at the break and were led by Courtney Jackson and DaVina Hamilton with 11 points, apiece.
Down by 17 with 14:35 remaining in the second stanza, the Lady Eagles rallied back and were able to cut the Jacksonville lead down to just seven points with 7:21 on the clock, capped by a pair of jumpers by Jessica Geiger (Stone Mountain, Ga.) and J'Lisia Ogburn (Dublin, Ga.).
The Dolphins were able to counter GSU's momentum in the remaining minutes of the game and held on for the victory. The win evened up the two-game series at 1-1.
“I thought we came out very passive,” said head coach Rusty Cram. “We didn't come out aggressive trying to score on anybody. We were just kind of going through the motions.”
“We got back into it a couple of times but we couldn't finish it when we had good runs going and we broke down and made turnovers at the wrong time. I'm more disappointed in the mental toughness than anything else. We just need to get them ready for the next one on Sunday, put this one behind us, learn from it and move on.”
The Lady Eagles were without the help of seniors Tiffany Brown and Christa Waterman. Both are out for the first six games of the season.
