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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Northeastern State women's basketball team saw its season come to a close with a 79-65 loss to No. 8 Central Missouri Thursday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the 2014 MIAA Championship.
The No. 9-seeded RiverHawks (11-17) advanced to Municipal Auditorium for the second-straight year, and they also fell in the quarterfinals for the second-straight year. The top-seeded Jennies (24-3) advance to face either No. 4 Missouri Southern State or No. 5 Fort Hays State at noon March 8.
Junior guard
Chelsey Beathard led NSU with 15 points. Fellow junior guard
Fontana Tate and freshman forward
Che'Ron Lewis both added 10 points. Forward
Carrington Fox, the lone senior on the team, tallied four points, five rebounds, four blocks, and two assists in her final collegiate game.
NSU shot 48.9 percent (23-for-47) from the field, 44.4 percent (8-for-18) from behind the 3-point line and 73.3 percent (11-for-15) at the free-throw line. UCM shot 56.6 percent (30-for-53) overall, 55 percent (11-for-20) from downtown and 72.7 percent (8-for-11) at the line.
BreAnna Lewis paced the Jennies with 21 points, 19 of which came in the second half. MIAA Player of the Year Keuna Flax registered 17 points, Shelby Winkelmann had 16 and Quinnecia Twine added 12 off the bench.
Central Missouri pushed ahead early and was able to build a 31-19 lead with 3:47 left following a Winkelmann triple. Northeastern State fought back and closed the half on a 10-0 run, though, to trail just 31-29 at intermission.
The RiverHawks stayed close to UCM early in the second half and trailed just 48-46 at the 13:11 mark, but the Jennies began flexing their muscles and used a 9-0 run to move ahead by double digits over the next few minutes.
NSU never recovered from the barrage of scoring from UCM down the stretch, and Central Missouri shot 72 percent (18-for-25) from the field in the second half to pull away from Northeastern State and earn the 14-point victory.
Scoring Summary
Northeastern State 29 36 65
#8 Central Missouri 31 48 79
Northeastern State Coach Randy Gipson
Opening Statement…
"I was pleased with the way we came out and played today. We were a little tentative early and missed some easy shots in and around the basket. But maybe those were just normal nerves that you have playing on this kind of stage. By and large our team tried to execute our game plan. I thought we defended the paint well and I thought we rebounded well. We made them to do the one thing that they're capable of doing, but that we hoped they wouldn't quite do so well today, and that's hit the long shots. (Quinnecia) Twine, (Shelby) Winkelmann and (BreAnna) Lewis in the second half were very good on hitting those shots. For the most part, they weren't poorly contested shots. (Central Missouri's) players stepped up and hit the shots. Our team competed well and we took care of the ball pretty well. We made shots ourselves, and we had to do that to make it a competitive game. Which I think it was for the most part."
On how important it was for the younger players to gain the experience of playing in KC…
"It meant a lot to us to get the win that we got on Monday at Northwest Missouri State. It's a year where we've had some highlights, and we've had a lot of lows. We've had various adversities throughout the year with injuries. For our team to finish the regular season with a six-game losing streak and then go on the road and earn the right to be here in Kansas City spoke volumes about the character of our team and about our lone senior
Carrington Fox. The year finished well, and I'm awfully happy we could get to Kansas City so that Carrington could do that again. And we actually played a better game this time around than we did last year with a more senior-laden team. We didn't leave anything out there. We finished the year in a way that we can be proud of and build on for our younger players. And we were able to send Carrington off in a way that she can be proud of."
-GoRiverHawksGo.com-
