Late Free Throws Secure Win over Appalachian State
12/16/2007 5:10:00 AM | Women's Basketball
STATESBORO,
With the win,
Up by six points, 61-55, with 5:14 remaining, Appalachian State found itself in foul trouble, and
Atwood (
Mountaineer Whitney Randolph led all scorers and rebounders with a career-best 20 points and 10 boards, shooting 9-of-16 from the field. She was followed by Sam Ramirez with 12 points, each bucket coming from behind the three-point line.
Only after climbing back from a seven-point, first-half deficit did the Lady Eagles take a one point lead going into the break, 36-35. It was a lead they would not give up for the remainder of the contest. Before the 14-point final advantage, the Lady Eagles' largest lead was 11 points with 9:51 remaining in the second half.
The Mountaineers managed to produce an 8-2 run over the next three minutes to cut the deficit down to six points, 59-53. But the Lady Eagles were steady from the free-throw line in the remaining minutes to stop the ASU rally.
“We feel like depth [was the difference]," said head coach Rusty Cram. "In the first half, I didn't feel like we played very aggressive. Hats off to App. They came out and played hard and aggressive. They took the game to us and we sat back and we took it. And I thought we let them do what thy wanted to do in the first half. We kind of got ourselves readjusted at halftime and we stepped up and played a little bit more aggressive in the second half and didn't take what they were dishing and I thought we grew up some there. I thought that was the difference.”
“We had four goals going in," said Cram. "We felt like our depth would get them if we continued to play hard and that we could get to them in the second half. We had to get to the free throw line more and keep them off of it. We had to outrebound them. And then we had to control the turnovers. We did three of the four. The turnovers kind of bit us a little bit. But we got to the line quite a bit more. And we outrebounded them well and our bench took care of business.”
Foul trouble plagued the Mountaineers (25 compared to GSU's 10) and Georgia Southern took advantage of it, hitting 24-35 attempts from the line, compared to 3-of-7 by App State.
“We worked hard on it all week, not fouling shooters and all," said Cram. "What we spent time on is in our motion offense, because we move so much it wears you out. You've got to constantly be moving in that motion offense. When you start getting tired, you start making mistakes. We have people, Melson, Atwood and Tiffany (Brown), that are such good athletes that they take the ball to the hole pretty well when they're ready to and draw those fouls.”
