Pittsburgh, PA- Despite a 19 point halftime lead, the University of Rochester women's basketball team was forced to overtime at Carnegie Mellon's Skibo Gymnasium, but escaped with a 67-60 win in a UAA thriller Friday night.
“We liked the position we were in at halftime” said head coach
Jim Scheible, “but winning on the road in the UAA is tough and we didn't put the game away.” The Tartans (10-5, 2-2 UAA) would outscore the Yellowjackets 40-21 in the second session to force overtime in a game that looked to be over early.
UR (11-4, 3-1 UAA), got a huge game inside from
Loren Wagner who finished with 14 points and a career-high 19 rebounds. She fought hard for some tough rebounds late in the game, including one off of a CMU free-throw with just two seconds left in regulation.
After Jacquie Shaw hit a jumper and then a free throw to put CMU up by three in OT, Rochester rattled off eight straight points to grab a big five point lead with 50 seconds remaining in the extra session.
Ally Zywicki hit a three to start the run and senior
Jackie Walker finished off the spurt with a deep 3-pointer from the corner.
The Tartans were led by Shaw who poured in a career high 31 points, grabbed 5 rebounds and snagged 3 steals. She scored over half of her teams 60 points.
Carnegie reached overtime and nearly won despite not getting any production from its top two scorers. Emily Peel who is third in the UAA in scoring (15.5 ppg) and Gabrielle West (11.7 ppg) were held scoreless on Friday night. West, a key player off the bench, did not even get into the game, presumably due to injury.
UR jumped out to a huge lead in the first half, using a 16-0 run over the course of seven minutes to jump up by 20, leading 32-12. That run showed off some of Rochester's depth and balanced scoring as six players contributed points. Senior
Amy Woods paced UR in the spurt, scoring five points. At the half, the Yellowjackets were ahead comfortably, 34-15.
In the second half, Carnegie Mellon returned the favor and really took it to UR on the defensive end. The Tartans scored 16 points off Rochester's turnovers. “Their zone gave really gave us trouble in the 2nd half” said Walker, “but we are happy to come out of here with the win”.
Breanna Madrazo finished with 12 points for UR, including 4-4 from the charity stripe in overtime. Walker had nine points while Zywicki ended with eight and four assists.
Danielle McNabb grabbed 10 rebounds for UR who outrebounded the Tartans 50-47. That was the first time this season CMU was outrebounded.
CMU was led by Shaw's career best and Lindsay Poss who chipped in 10 points and nine rebounds.
The UAA schedule continues on Sunday when the Yellowjackets travel to Cleveland to take on Case Western Reserve who fell at home to Emory University tonight. UR is currently in a three way tie with Washington University and Emory for first in the UAA.
