For the second year in a row, Lehigh took Nova into overtime but the Cats came away with the win, this time 62-54 in front of more than 3,000 screaming grade schoolers at Stabler Arena.
After Nova pulled ahead to a 30-24 halftime lead, the offense went south for the first ten minutes of the second half, scoring only four points. Fortunately Lehigh was not much better and could only wind up pushing ahead by one at 35-34 at the ten minunte mark. A Laura Sweeney layup and foul shot a minute later put Nova back on top for the duration of the regulation time.
Seemingly with the game in hand at 49-43 with only a minute left, Nova gave up two straight layups to cut the margin to two. Pearson was intentionally fouled and made both to put the margin back to four with 26 seconds left but Lehigh ran coast to coast for another layup with 16 seconds left and immediately fouled Rachel Roberts who made the first but missed the second.
Nova took both of the fouls that they had to give leaving Lehigh with the ball under their basket with only nine seconds to play. The perimeter players were hounded and Lehigh had no open looks but a twisting off balance rainbow from in front of Lehigh's bench hit nothing but the bottom of the net as the horn sounded. Lots of noise and high fives from the Lehigh team and fans and stunned disbelief from the Nova team.
A real gut check game and Nova responded. After going down two on foul shots early in OT, Nova scored ten unanswered (first eight by Sweeney) to win the game. No longer any doubt that Sweeney is our go-to player. Career high 27 points and 13 really tough boards were the game changers. Burford returned from a one game injury and responded by returning to her earlier three point form, hitting four of eight. Not much other scoring from anyone else. Roberts had eleven but took 19 shots to get there.
Despite the relatively low score, the pace was once again an up-tempo mode with several fast break baskets and still not many turnovers (8). A lot of that may have been attributable to the refs not calling any walks or turnovers - unheard of in a women's game. Although they may not all start, the fav five for Harry is definately Burford, Sweeney, Roberts, Kane and Pearson when the game is on the line.
The team must shoot better from the perimeter to put themselves in a better position to win games. No way this game should have come down to a final shot. Nevertheless we have won three games on the road this year that we would have found a way to lose last year.
A Sunday afternoon game at LaSalle will be another opportunity to see if the team can put all of the pieces together to be in complete control of a team that should not be there in the end. The prior games with them have always seemed to end that way however.
After Nova pulled ahead to a 30-24 halftime lead, the offense went south for the first ten minutes of the second half, scoring only four points. Fortunately Lehigh was not much better and could only wind up pushing ahead by one at 35-34 at the ten minunte mark. A Laura Sweeney layup and foul shot a minute later put Nova back on top for the duration of the regulation time.
Seemingly with the game in hand at 49-43 with only a minute left, Nova gave up two straight layups to cut the margin to two. Pearson was intentionally fouled and made both to put the margin back to four with 26 seconds left but Lehigh ran coast to coast for another layup with 16 seconds left and immediately fouled Rachel Roberts who made the first but missed the second.
Nova took both of the fouls that they had to give leaving Lehigh with the ball under their basket with only nine seconds to play. The perimeter players were hounded and Lehigh had no open looks but a twisting off balance rainbow from in front of Lehigh's bench hit nothing but the bottom of the net as the horn sounded. Lots of noise and high fives from the Lehigh team and fans and stunned disbelief from the Nova team.
A real gut check game and Nova responded. After going down two on foul shots early in OT, Nova scored ten unanswered (first eight by Sweeney) to win the game. No longer any doubt that Sweeney is our go-to player. Career high 27 points and 13 really tough boards were the game changers. Burford returned from a one game injury and responded by returning to her earlier three point form, hitting four of eight. Not much other scoring from anyone else. Roberts had eleven but took 19 shots to get there.
Despite the relatively low score, the pace was once again an up-tempo mode with several fast break baskets and still not many turnovers (8). A lot of that may have been attributable to the refs not calling any walks or turnovers - unheard of in a women's game. Although they may not all start, the fav five for Harry is definately Burford, Sweeney, Roberts, Kane and Pearson when the game is on the line.
The team must shoot better from the perimeter to put themselves in a better position to win games. No way this game should have come down to a final shot. Nevertheless we have won three games on the road this year that we would have found a way to lose last year.
A Sunday afternoon game at LaSalle will be another opportunity to see if the team can put all of the pieces together to be in complete control of a team that should not be there in the end. The prior games with them have always seemed to end that way however.