Grantham, PA — With an outright MAC Commonwealth regular-season title in the balance and senior day serving as the backdrop, the Messiah College women's basketball team closed out the regular season in style Saturday afternoon, defeating Albright College by a 66-57 score in Brubaker Auditorium.
The win gave Messiah its seventh regular-season league title in the last eight years — the Falcons shared the crown in the 2004-2005 season — while keeping the team's streak of perfection in regular-season conference home games in tact: Messiah has now rattled off 40 regular-season conference home wins in a row, a span encompassing the last six years.
Perhaps most importantly, however, is the immediate future, as Messiah (23-2, 10-0) enters next week's MAC Commonwealth Conference Tournament as the top seed. The Falcons will host Widener University Wednesday night at 7 p.m. as the post-season begins.
“We are just excited for the new, next season,” said Mike Miller, Messiah head coach. “We're playing well, we're healthy and we're looking forward to this next step. Our goal was to finish the regular-season strong, and try to carry that into the post-season.”
Miller's team faced a tough task in that pursuit Saturday, as Albright (20-5, 8-2) entered the afternoon undefeated in MAC Commonwealth play against all opponents not named Messiah. The Lions did their best to slow the hosts early, holding the Falcons to just an 11 for 30 first-half shooting performance from the field (36.7 percent).
Messiah responded in kind, handcuffing Albright to just a six for 29 first-period shooting clip (20.7 percent), taking a narrow, 28-24 lead at the half.
“Both teams know each other so well, our defensive efforts made it ugly for both sides during the first half,” Miller said. “Quite honestly, the story of the night for us was changing defenses and changing tempo.”
Seeking a better avenue to generate offense from its defense, Miller employed a half-court zone at the outset of the second period, paying instant dividends. A 15 to four Messiah run highlighted the second period's first five minutes, turning a four-point lead at the break into a 43-28 difference with 15:09 to play.
The tail end of that push came courtesy of senior Amy Reed, as the point guard from Wenatchee, Washington scored nine straight points for Messiah, eventually helping her to a career-high 21 points.
“Amy has been playing really well lately, and tonight she obviously felt pretty good shooting the basketball,” Miller said. “But all of our seniors were just great tonight. Their energy and composure has keyed us all season long, and today was no exception.”
After a jumper from Albright's Meredith Berger stopped the Reed show with 14:50 to play, senior Nikki Lobach scored back-to-back layups to regain a 47-30 lead with 11:42 remaining.
Messiah led by as many as 18 points just a minute later, and when another jumper from Reed found the bottom of the net at the 6:25 mark, the Falcons had their biggest lead of the night at 59-40.
As Miller began emptying his bench in the waning moments, the storybook ending for the squad's seniors was subdued only by a late – yet moot – surge from the visitors, as Albright scored the game's final nine points to pull a 66-50 margin into the respectable 66-57 final.
Turnovers continued to be the determining statistic for Miller's bunch, as Messiah forced Albright into 26 mistakes while committing just 13 giveaways on its end of the floor. It was the seventh straight contest that the Falcons forced more turnovers than they committed.
“Our zone (defense) got us more active defensively and we were able to get some deflections,” Miller said. “We did a great job of disrupting things for Albright, and they are a team that doesn't turn the ball over. Those deflections allowed us to get out in the open floor and get some fast break points.”
Lobach followed Reed's lead offensively, scoring 20 points on an eight for 20 shooting effort. Junior Silalei Shani added 11 points, while Lobach, Shani and senior Gwen Avery each grabbed a team-best five rebounds.
Saturday's win was also a milestone for Messiah's senior class, as Reed, Avery and Lauren Schurr now possess a career record of 100-12 during their four years in uniform. The group stands just one win away from equaling the most career wins in program history.
“Lauren and Gwen didn't quite have the stat line that Amy and Nikki had, but they were excellent on defense today and just as basketball players,” Miller said. “Sometimes (seniors) can get reminiscent and emotional at games like this and not play as well as a result. That's just not the case with our four seniors. Their composure and leadership has been awesome, and it's worn off on everyone else.”
Perhaps a portion of that collective composure stemmed from the knowledge that Saturday would not be the final game in Brubaker for the group, as the MAC Commonwealth tie-breaking procedures guaranteed Messiah the number one seed for the conference tournament regardless of Saturday's outcome. The Falcons will now host Widener Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in the first round of conference tournament play, an opponent that Messiah defeated by a 78-29 score just a week ago.
“That was a game where Widener was in a little bit of disarray beforehand and things kind of went downhill from there,” Miller said. “They are a much better team than what they showed that night. We'll prepare hard and give it our best on Wednesday.”
