S.C. STATE ELIMINATES LADY AGGIES

Williams leads Aggies with 15 points, Glover held to 2-for-15 shooting

 RICHMOND, Va., March 7, 2005 – It’s a different season. If the N.C. A&T women’s basketball team didn’t believe head coach Saudia Roundtree when she made the point, the team believes her now.

Forty-eight hours after defeating S.C. State at home, the Lady Aggies shot just 32 percent from the field and were eliminated from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament 70-60. LaKeisha Williams led the Aggies with 15 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Glover added 11 points and eight assists, but was just 2-for-15 from the floor.

Tia Richardson ended her Lady Aggies career with an eight-point, six-rebound performance.

Other than Williams, however, not many Aggies could get the ball through the basket. Meanwhile, the Lady Bulldogs used the post combo of Chanyekeson Ambroise and Evena Morency to pull away.

Morency finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds, including six on the offensive, while Ambroise had 12 points and eight rebounds.

The Lady Aggies finish the season 10-18, marking the first time they finished the season with double-digit wins since the 1998-99 season.

“They were the better team tonight,’’ Roundtree said. “We didn’t come to play and they were the aggressors on offensive. Give South Carolina State credit, they came out and played like they had something to play for and we didn’t.”

The Lady Bulldogs scored the first 11 points of the game, and N.C. A&T never really recovered. S.C. State led from the starting tip to the game-ending horn.

Down seven (23-16) at the 5:49 mark of the first half, the Lady Aggies made a mini-run. Williams scored as she drove to the basket, Kira Tillman hit a short jump shot and Williams scored again to move the Aggies to within one, 23-22.

But with 51 seconds remaining in the half, LaQuita Ball capped off a 6-0 S.C. State run with a three that put the Lady Bulldogs up seven, 29-22 at the half.

N.C. A&T stayed anywhere between three and seven points behind until the 12-minute mark of the second half. S.C. State pulled away from that point and started putting the finishing touches on the Lady Aggies season.

The Lady Bulldogs did it with free throw shooting. Leading 43-36, they connected on six straight free throws from 11:34 mark until the 10:08 mark, giving them a 49-38 lead. Ball then gave the Lady Bulldogs their biggest lead of the game with a 3-pointer pushing the lead to 52-38 with 9:18 remaining.

“Any time you attempt 39 free throws in a game, you’re not going to lose too many,” Roundtree said. “You do the math. They attempted 39 and hit 26 of them. That’s a huge advantage.”

The Lady Aggies went to the line more times than the Lady Bulldogs on Saturday at the Corbett Sports Center. There were a few other subtle differences from Saturday’s matchup, a 75-64 win for N.C. A&T,  to Monday’s contest.

On Saturday, the Lady Aggies forced S.C. State into 30 turnovers. On Monday, the Lady Bulldogs cut that number to 22. On Saturday, the Lady Aggies placed five players in double figures. On Monday, they placed two.

Perhaps, the biggest difference came from about 19-20 feet out. S.C. State did not hit a three in eight attempts on Saturday, on Monday they hit four in eight attempts.

“They definitely came out with a different attitude tonight,’’ Williams said. “They came out aggressive, and I think we did sort of take for granted that we could re-create what happened on Saturday. By the time we came out to play, it was too late.”