ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University women's basketball team's 2016-17 season came to a close on Friday afternoon in the South Region Quarterfinals as the Argonauts of West Florida topped the Sharks, 66-57. The Sharks finished with an overall record of 17-12 while the Argos improve to 26-6 and will play Benedict in the semifinals tomorrow.
 
Down 20-9 after a slow first quarter, the Sharks turned on the heat to outscore the Argos 15-7 in the second quarter and come within three, 27-24. NSU used a 15-3 run, sparked by a layup by Christen Prasse, to get within one at 25-24 before the Argos closed out the first-half scoring with a jumper by Kaite O'Neal.
 
Two minutes into the third quarter, a trey by Prasse knotted the game for the first time, 27-27. After traded layups by either team to tie the game again and a jumper by UWF's Toni Brewer, NSU took its first lead of the game (32-31) when Samantha Logan connected on her shot from beyond the arc. In less than two minutes, the two teams traded the lead three times and the game saw two ties before a pair of free throws by Brewer gave UWF the lead once more, one they would not relinquish.
 
After an opening bucket by the Argos, back-to-back layups by Katie Barnard and Amanda Tivenius knotted the game for the final time, 45-45, before West Florida exploded for a 17-4 run to grab their largest lead of the game yet, 62-49, with 1:18 to go. The Sharks were able to tally six more points on three pointers by Prasse and Piggott but it wasn't enough as the Argos utilized shots from the charity stripe en route to their 66-57 win.

"I thought we played extremely hard, defensively we did a great job executing the game plan," explained head coach LeAnn Freeland. "Unfortunately, offensively we weren't as solid as we needed to be, but we fought hard. We did a great job bouncing back in the second and the third quarters, but down the stretch we seemed to lose a bit of energy."
 
Prasse led all Sharks with her third double-double of the year, coming from 16 points and 13 rebounds. She also recorded a team-high six assists. Logan was the next highest scorer with 12 points and added seven boards, two assists and two steals. With her rebounds from today's game, Logan surpassed Jasmine Wilkins and is now fourth all-time in Shark history. Tivenius registed seven points and seven boards while Maria Bardeeva put up eight points.
 
The Argos were led by Brewer and Katie Bobos, who tallied 22 and 20 points, respectively. They both recorded double-doubles as Brewer pulled down 13 boards and Bobos had 10.