Crimson Storm Breeze Past OBU Women

February 25, 2005

Clutch shooting and offensive rebounds were the demise for OBU as Southern Nazarene defeated the Lady Bison 65-54 Thursday night at the Noble Complex. SNU hit key shots down the stretch to keep OBU at bay while out rebounding the Lady Bison 49-31.

"I think we were ready to play tonight," said Head Coach McCullough. "When you don't take advantage of their mistakes and they take advantage of yours you can't win. Second chance points killed us. We didn't block out well and when you do that against a good team they make you pay. The key for us has always been rebounding well and we didn't do that."

SNU got double figures from four different players with Christie Rush leading the way with a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds. Shanda Murdoch scored 14 while Jamie Morgan scored 13 and Katie Snodgrass scored 12.

Rachel Heins led all scorers with 19 points from the bench while Tabetha Eaton was the only other Lady Bison in double figures with 12.

"Rachel gave us some great minutes off the bench," said McCullough. "We thought that Rachel could do a good job against their post players in the paint. She had a rough time with (Sandra) Murdoch and she had trouble early scoring, but she came back and played a great game."

OBU falls a game behind SNU in the conference as OBU moved to 11-6 in the SAC and 23-6 overall. SNU moved 12-5 and 23-6.

In the first half, SNU held OBU scoreless for the first 4:33 of the game, but the Lady Bison defense held the Crimson Storm to just five points in that same stretch. After SNU jumped out to a 5-0 lead, Trena Robbins got OBU on the board with a bucket in the paint to start a 7-0 run to put OBU up 7-5.

Snodgrass helped the Strom take a 27-20 lead after she ignited a 7-0 run with her first three of the night.

OBU pulled within four at halftime when Priscilla Alves hit a three to make the score 30-26 as OBU trailed by four.

SNU opened up the second half with a 30-3 run to take their biggest lead of the game at 50-29 with nine minutes into the half.

With 9:00 left to play the Lady Bison began to mount a comeback with Layla Schwarz hitting a lay up that sparked a 10-0 run to pull OBU within 11 at 54-43.

Heins brought OBU within 10 at 56-46, but that was as close as OBU came as SNU held the double digit lead through the rest of the game.

"Our defense was a lot better in the first half then it was in the second half," said McCullough. "I thought we played defense well for about eight minutes in the second half. It's too bad you can't turn the clock back start at that point. We have to come out and play a full 40 minutes."

OBU has one game left in the regular season and that's senior night against Oklahoma Christian Saturday night at 6 p.m. in the Noble Complex.