CONWAY, S.C. – The sixth-seeded Presbyterian College women's basketball team led No. 3 High Point at halftime in its VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Conference Championship quarterfinal on Thursday night, but a strong second half from the Panthers gave High Point a 75-62 victory.
PC ends its season at 16-15. High Point improves to 19-11 and will face No. 7 Gardner-Webb on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the semifinal.
The Blue Hose played a dynamite first half to take a 33-31 lead at halftime but could not keep up the pace after the break. PC shot 52.0 percent in the first half but struggled in the second, shooting 29.0 percent in the final stanza. High Point shot 48.9 percent overall en route to the win.
“I'm proud of our team,” said head coach Ronny Fisher. “We played really well toward the end of the first half. We have a young team and it showed in the second half, but it wasn't for lack of effort.”
Freshman guard Janie Miles (Clemson, S.C.) scored a game-high 20 points—one shy of her career-best—and Aianna Kelly (Virginia Beach, Va.) tied for a game-high with 10 rebounds. High Point's Stacia Robertson led High Point with 17 points while Latrice Phelps tallied 10 rebounds.
PC chased High Point through nearly the entire first half, keeping the Panthers in range behind 10 first-half points from Miles. The Panthers led for 18:15 of the period before the Blue Hose tied the game in the final minute and pulled ahead on an Elizabeth Landers putback with eight seconds before the break, giving PC a 33-31 lead at halftime.
Both teams found themselves with hot hands early, combining to shoot at an 11-for-15 clip heading into the first media timeout. High Point took advantage and opened a seven-point lead 4:41 into the game, but the Blue Hose continued to fight. Five straight points from Rebecca Walker (Snellville, Ga.) made it an 18-17 score with 10:42 left before the Panthers stretched its lead back to seven. Walker finished the game with 12 points.
Miles hit two three-pointers as PC chipped away. High Point began to go cold with a 2-for-9 stretch and PC closed in. A Keyonna Allen (Forest Park, Ga.) layup cut the gap to one with 1:32 to go and Walker answered a Panthers free throw with a slick cut through the lane to tie the game at just under a minute to go. Eight seconds before halftime, Elizabeth Landers (Greenville, S.C.) followed up a miss with a perfect putback to give PC its first lead since the opening minute, 33-31.
The Blue Hose won the rebound battle at halftime, 15-10, and entered the locker room shooting exactly 52 percent (13-for-25).
Missed layups opened the door for High Point to tie the game and go up by five early in the half. Robertson scored two of her 10 second-half points to keep PC at bay before a Miles layup trimmed High Point's lead to 47-44 at the 10:16 mark.
High Point then assembled an 11-2 run from which PC could not recover. Work from the free throw line helped the Blue Hose get back within double digits with five minutes to go, but PC could pull no closer than nine as the Panthers closed the game out down the stretch for the win.
The two teams matched each other in assists (13), points in the paint (24), and turnovers (16). The Blue Hose expect to return 10 players for the 2015-16 season.
“We're starting two freshmen, two sophomores and coming off the bench with freshmen and sophomores,” said Fisher. “It's neat to be able to bring this exact group back next year, minus Keyonna [Allen] and Noelle [Carter]. We have a chance to really be good in the future.”
