Concord 92, Urbana 87 | Final Stats
By Duane Cochran for MountainEast.org
WHEELING, W.Va. – Fourth-seeded Concord and fifth-seeded Urbana saved the best for last Thursday night in the final quarterfinal round game of the Mountain East Conference Women's Basketball Tournament here at WesBanco Arena.
After Notre Dame, Charleston and Glenville all coasted to double-digit wins in their early quarterfinal-round games, Concord and Urbana gave the fans a thriller that wasn't decided until the final seconds.
Concord's Riley Fitzwater, a 50 percent free throw shooter for the season who was just 1-of-4 from the line prior to her final trip there, calmly drained a pair of free throws with just 2.6 seconds remaining to help the Mountain Lions seal a hard-fought 92-87 victory over the Blue Knights.
"What a game," Concord coach Kenny Osborne said. "An old wise friend of mine named Will Prewitt once said the only difference in a four-five game is the color of the uniforms. Tonight that was evident.
"(Sylvia) Hudson had the game of her life. She's a heckuva player and so is (Tyra) James. I thought the difference in the game was we held James to 14 points on 20 shots. We put Madison (May) on her and tried every defense under the sun. We tried trapping, junk and everything. Down at the end we just made plays.
"They fouled Riley. I think Riley was 1-of-4 at that point and she calmly sunk the free throws to ice the game for us. She stepped up and won the game for us. I know everybody thinks Concord is May and Fitzwater and Fitzwater and May, but we had five people in double figures tonight including (Gracie) Robinson, (Keely) Lundy and (Maggie) Guynn. We also got help off the bench so it was a complete team win and I'm very happy to get it and advance on."
Fitzwater says she expected Urbana to try to foul her at the end.
"That was the thing to do and they did it," said Fitzwater, who finished with 21 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots. "I am a 50 percent free throw shooter so that was the thing to do. I just tried to step up for my team. It was a relief when I got the first one to go down."
The win, which was the eighth in a row for Concord, improved the Mountain Lions to 21-8 and puts them in Saturday's semifinals against top-seeded Glenville at noon. Concord defeated Glenville in the final regular season game for both teams Feb. 29, 103-102.
Urbana, on the other hand, ended its season at 17-12. The Blue Knights had the second-best turnaround in NCAA Division II this season with a 13-win improvement.
"I'm am very, very proud of our players because they never gave up and they worked very hard," Urbana coach Andrea McCloskey said. "I'm so happy we showed up like we did tonight. We didn't come in with a discouraged look on our faces because Concord had beaten us twice during the regular season. We came in with a lot of fire in our eyes and I'm very pleased with how we played."
Concord led the contest for over 35 minutes, but the Blue Knights never let the Mountain Lions pull away for any extended time. For much of the game the lead remained between four and seven points. Early in the fourth and final quarter Concord got back-to-back 3-pointers from Keely Lundy to push its lead to 11. It was Concord's only double digit lead of the game and it didn't last long. In just over a five-minute span Urbana had whittled the lead back to three with 2:20 to play. After that Concord never led by any more than five.
"Our entire team stepped up tonight," said May, who led Concord with 29 points, 18 of which came in the second half. "Like coach said a lot of people just think we're me and Riley and we're not. We've got a good team and we had a lot of people play key roles for us in this win."
Urbana entered the contest with two of the MEC's top players in Tyra James and Sylvia Hudson, who both average over 20 points per outing. James, the MEC Player of the Year, struggled early. She finished the game with 14 points, but was just 2-of-12 from the field after the first 20 minutes.
With James struggling, Hudson took over for the Blue Knights. She scored a season-high 37 points, 21 of which came in the first half. The 37-point performance tied her for the third-highest single-scoring game in MEC Tournament history.
"Ty and I are a duo and everyone just kinda feeds off of us," said Hudson, who was 14-of-18 from the field and 6-of-6 at the line. "With her struggling I knew I just had to put the team on my back and lead us. I knew eventually she'd get going. Ty isn't going to stay cold for long and eventually she did."
The Blue Knights also got 18 points from Weston Minnich and 11 points from Bailey Draughn.
Concord, which shot 55.4 percent from the field in the win (36-of-65), got 13 points and five assists from Maggie Guynn, 12 points from Gracie Robinson and 11 points from Keely Lundy.
Saturday will be Concord's second straight appearance in the MEC semifinals. The Mountain Lions lost last season to Charleston in the semifinals, 68-59.
