Grantham, PA — Fans of the Messiah College women's basketball team have grown accustomed to witnessing their squad cruise to victory by large sums this season.
Friday night, those in attendance at Brubaker Auditorium got a bit of a remix.
Messiah did win — knocking off the University of Rochester by a 73-61 score in the 2008 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship 'Sweet 16' — but did so in atypical fashion: The Falcons had to overcome a 15-point deficit in the second half, flirting with what very easily could have been the team's final game of the year.
Instead, Messiah now advances to the 'Elite 8' for the third time in program history, standing just one win away from a berth in the Final Four. The Falcons will face off with Tufts University Saturday evening for the right to punch a ticket to that stage, set for next weekend at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Just the opportunity to have that opportunity made Messiah head coach Mike Miller beam late Friday night.
“(Senior guard) Amy Reed talked about it in her post-game prayer,” Miller said. “It's about the chance to play one more day. That was the theme, and that's really what these kids are about. They're an incredible group of young ladies, and they just want to keep playing. I can't say enough about that will.”
Miller's group needed every bit of that desire against Rochester (22-6), as the Yellowjackets proved their collective worth early and often in Friday's late game. Ranked 22nd in the final USA Today/ESPN Top 25 Coaches Poll, Rochester withstood a pair of early three pointers from Reed and senior Lauren Schurr to take a commanding 20-9 lead early on, keeping Messiah (28-2) at an arm's length throughout.
A three pointer from the Yellowjackets' Melissa Alwardt made it a 30-21 game with just 3:43 to play in the first half, while a layup from senior Nikki Lobach and triple courtesy of junior Katie Kalb pulled the hosts within a 30-26 score just minutes later.
Rochester responded with a jumper in the corner with 37 seconds to play, and led by a 32-26 score at the intermission.
It was the first time Messiah trailed at the half since facing Kean University on Jan. 19.
That was also the last time the Falcons lost.
“It was not a very pleasant situation in the locker room at halftime,” said Lobach, who scored nine first-half points in keeping things from being worse. “We weren't very happy with how we played, and we certainly didn't like the way things were going.”
Things may have actually been bleaker, had Rochester's Helen Baroody not missed a wide open three from the baseline just before the halftime buzzer. With the Yellowjackets' bench ready to explode, Miller realized his team might have dodged at least one emotional bullet.
“Coach said it at halftime, that we took their best shot,” said Schurr. “He tried to tell us that Rochester played very well, but that was their best. It was our turn to respond.”
While Miller would ultimately be proved correct, his timing was a bit off. The Yellowjackets scored 11 of the first 13 points in the second half, increasing their lead to 43-28 with 16:49 remaining on another long ball from Baroody.
Miller called his fourth timeout of the game at that moment. For all intents and purposes, it would be a timeout that would save the season.
“I did tell the team that (the first half) was Rochester's best shot, but their best kind of carried into the first three minutes or so of the second half,” Miller said in the post-game press conference, drawing laughter from Schurr and teammates. “We decided (during the timeout) to go to our zone (defense), which we don't really ever play. But, there have been times this year that we've had trouble stopping people, and we've used it. We're actually really good at it, but we don't practice it anymore. We just talk about concepts.”
Fittingly, it worked like a charm.
A layup from junior Sal Shani would trigger a starting point for the defense — “you can't really get into a zone without making a shot,” Miller would later say — sparking a 14 to nothing Messiah run that completely altered the complexion of the game. Rochester would miss three straight shots and commit three consecutive turnovers against Messiah's amoeba-like defense, and when Lobach converted a traditional three-point play at the 13:22 mark, the Falcons trailed by just a point at 43-42.
With Brubaker almost shaking with noise, a brief run from Rochester would prove futile. The Yellowjackets would connect on three of their next five shots to claim a 50-47 lead with 10:15 to play, but a contested three ball from Schurr just 29 seconds later knotted things up.
After the teams traded buckets on the next exchange, another layup from Shani gave Messiah a 54-52 lead. Junior Ashley Brooks came up with a steal on the Falcons' next defensive trip, setting up another triple from Schurr to make it a 57-52 contest with 7:31 to play.
A Shani free throw and patented turnaround jumper in the post over the team's next two possessions increased the lead to 60-52, and all of a sudden it was Rochester that was playing catch-up. A layup from Lobach made it a 63-53 game with 1:43 to play, and Messiah would ice things from the free throw line from there on in: The squad made 10 of 13 charity tosses in the final 1:26, removing any last-minute drama from the equation.
Lobach led Messiah's scoring efforts, charting 23 points on a five for seven shooting performance from the field and a 13 for 23 effort from the free throw line. Shani recorded her second career double-double in as many games, notching a game-high 11 rebounds to go with 11 points. Reed scored 13 points, while Schurr added nine and Kalb eight.
The team made a season-high 25 free throws on a season-high 39 attempts, and committed just seven turnovers. That mark was the second-fewest amount of mistakes in a single game this season, bettered only by the squad's six turnovers in a 62-47 win at Alvernia College on Jan. 10.
Knowing it was just one game away from the Final Four, a typically reserved group displayed emotion as the clock ticked down to triple zeroes. Reed spiked the ball off the floor as the final buzzer sounded, while Lobach and Schurr jumped into each other's arms.
Brooks wept openly.
“We just want to make it to the Final Four so, so badly,” Lobach said. “Each game that we get closer, it's just building up. Tonight's win felt really good on one hand, but there's still more to take care of. We're still not to our goal yet.”
Perhaps adding to the emotion was an absolutely rambunctious Brubaker Auditorium crowd, an oddity given that Messiah College began its spring break Thursday. Lobach said it took the team a half to adjust to the crowd noise — "it was the first time in my career we couldn't hear each other out on the court" — while Miller commended the fans for having a part in the win itself.
“A lot of crowds wait until you do something to get excited, but tonight it was just the opposite,” he said. “They didn't wait until we scored three or four straight baskets, they were urging us on. If we did anything halfway worth getting excited about, it sounded like we took a lead. They were absolutely fantastic.”
Messiah will now face Tufts (26-3) Saturday night at 7 p.m. in Brubaker Auditorium, as the Jumbos handed the University of Mary Washington (ranked fourth in the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 poll and fifth in the D3hoops.com rating) a 48-45 loss in Friday's early contest. It is Tufts' first trip to the NCAA Division III Championship tournament, while Mary Washington was coming off a Final Four appearance last season.
Doors will open to Brubaker Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $7 for adults, $4 for senior citizens and $4 for students with ID. Children ages three to 12 cost $3.
Fans unable to make it to the game will have a variety of options to follow the action from afar, as WVMM, Messiah College Radio will broadcast the game both on local FM frequency 90.7 FM and over the world wide web. Tufts, meanwhile, will offer a free video webcast via JumboCast. Fans can click here to view the game online.
For an updated tournament bracket featuring Friday's winners from around the country, click
here.
