Brittanie Taylor-James scores a season-high 21 points

Box Score
HAMPTON, Va., February 26, 2007 – It’s done. The North Carolina A&T women’s basketball team has clinched a bye for the upcoming MEAC Tournament with its 73-63 win over Hampton on Monday night. Amber Bland led the way with 25 points, while Brittanie Taylor-James scored a season-high 21 points and also grabbed seven rebounds.    

Ahmad Williams also reached double figures with 13 points and six rebounds. The win also moved head coach Patricia Cage Bibbs closer to her 400^th career win. Bibbs had 397 career wins. If she reaches the milestone it will be at the 2007 MEAC Tournament. Bibbs, who spent seven seasons at Hampton and won three MEAC titles with the Pirates, has been successful in all four of her meetings against her former team.

“It would be a wonderful accomplishment, but we’re going to the tournament to bring back some gold,’’ said Bibbs who spent 13 seasons at Grambling and seven seasons at Hampton. “We have to get used to playing away from our home gym and we showed signs of getting comfortable away from home.”

Things got very uncomfortable when Bland picked up her fourth foul with 9:08 remaining in the game. It sent the conference’s leading scorer to the bench with the Aggies holding a 55-46 lead. The Pirates began to cut into that lead with Bland out.

An Artavia Burns jumper with 6:28 remaining cut the Aggies lead to 58-54. But each time the Pirates threatened the Aggies lead with their star player out, the Aggies responded. Taylor-James hit two free throws to put the Aggies ahead by six. The Pirates cut the lead to four again on a Whitney Hill jumper. But LaPorsha Lowry grabbed a Ta’Wuana Cook miss and scored to give the Aggies a 62-56 lead with 5:07 remaining.

Hampton’s Shahara Johnson kept the pressure on with a layup in the lane, but two more Taylor-James free throws widened the gap once more. With Bland back in the game, the Aggies would put the Pirates away for good. She re-entered at the 4:31 mark and she and Taylor-James nailed 7 out of 8 free throws down the stretch to halt anymore Pirate rallies.

The Aggies, who had to close out the season with three straight road games, have won two of them and have crucial game with Delaware State approaching. The winner goes into the MEAC Tournament as the No. 2 seed. A win over the Hornets on Monday, would tie the school record for most wins in a conference season at 13.