Box Score BOX SCORE
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern women’s basketball team has advanced to the NCAA South Region Championship, by virtue of their Saturday night victory over Rollins College, 73-57 at the NSU Arena in the Don Taft University Center.
The Sharks (22-8) will face Delta State in Monday’s title game. Their third win of the season over the Tars, on Saturday, did not come without drama despite a 23-point first half lead.
With 10:03 to go in the first, the Sharks led by two, 13-11.
Danielle Robinson (So., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) scored on a layup, and two straight 3-pointers by
Taylor Buie (Fr., Puyallup, Wash.) ignited what would become a 20-0 run to push NSU ahead 33-11.
While Rollins (22-9) didn’t score for nearly five minutes of game time, and didn’t hit their next field goal until the 3:57 mark, they battled back to an 11-point halftime deficit, 40-29.
Rollins cut further into the NSU lead in the second half, twice getting it to a five-point game. The first was the Tars coming out of the locker room on a 8-2 run to make it 42-37, but
Alexis Murphy (Fr, Carlsle, Ohio), just a 15 percent shooter from 3-point range coming in, buried one off the dribble to begin a 7-0 spurt for NSU, giving them a 49-37 lead.
Later, with 8:23 to go, it was just a five-point spread at 54-49, and again the Sharks responded with a mini-run. This one was 6-0, with a jumper by Robinson and back-to-back layups by
Tailor Jones (Sr., Altamonte Spring, Fla.) and Murphy, to move ahead by 11 (60-49). Even at this point, they still weren’t out of the woods.
The last gasp for Rollins, with 4:04 left, was snuffed out by the NSU long-range game. With the Sharks ahead by eight, 62-54, Robinson made the first of two free throws, and though her second missed,
Amanda Burakoski (Jr., Brooklyn, N.Y.) chased down the offensive rebound and hit a 3-pointer. The Tars come up empty on their possession, and
Meixandra Porter (Sr., Chantilly, Va.) hit one from more than three steps from behind the line – her first and only 3-pointer of the night – to push the lead to 15, and it stayed in double digits for the remainder of the game.
"We knew it was going to be a battle," said head coach LeAnn Freeland of Saturday's game. "Rollins is a traditional team in the Sunshine State Conference and Coach Wilkes does a tremendous job getting his team prepared, so I want to congratulate them on a great season. Even when we established a big lead in the first half, we knew it was not over and Rollins sure did show the crowd and our team just that. We battled for 40 minutes and I was really happy with our players down the stretch to show the resolve that they did to finish the game."
Porter led the team in scoring for the third straight game, with 20 on Saturday. Buie was next with 15, with three 3-pointers, and Burakoski had 14 on 5-of-8 shooting, 4-of-7 from 3-point range, along with a team-high eight rebounds. Jones had nine points, seven rebounds, and a team-high five assists to only one turnover.
"(Tonight) was a good win, especially on our home court, our fans were there and they support us and I definitely think we are going to have even more fans on Monday," said Porter. "But just to take care of business personally, I feel like Rollins is the team that we needed to beat again just to make sure it was known that we are a good team, a really good team. I just think that we want to go out there and have fun playing as a team and I feel like we did that very well."
Rollins had two in double digits: Sarah Taylor with 17 and Ashley Jones with 12. The SSC Tournament Champions lose just one senior, point guard Tera McDaniel.
NSU moves on to face Delta State, who just like the Sharks, upended the team that eliminated them from their conference tournament. The Lady Statesmen topped Alabama-Huntsville in Saturday's first matchup, 81-58.
"Delta State is a very athletic team; they like to get up on defense and pressure," said Freeland. "They like to set a lot of ball screens, a whole lot of ball screens. (They are) a very good program, so we are going to have to refocus quickly and be ready to play. It is a team we have not seen and it will be kind of nice to face another team we have not seen all year."
The South Region Championship between NSU and DSU tips off Monday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcasted live on 640 AM, with the winner advancing to the DII Elite Eight in San Antonio.
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