CLINTON — Putting up a fight in every contest this season is something that the Southwest Mississippi Community College women can hang their hats on.
And Thursday’s NJCAA Region 23 Semifinal game at Mississippi College in Clinton against top-seeded Pearl River was no different.
But despite the effort, it was not enough as the No. 4 Lady Bears struggled for the majority of the night rebounding the ball on both ends of the floor falling to the top-seeded Lady Wildcats 62-50 ending their season.
“I told them in most of the huddles that I hope that the ball falls in our hands because we are not crashing at all,” SMCC head coach Brent Harris said. “Now the third huddle, after that, we did crash a little, but we couldn’t get an offensive rebound. We did make a run but we were consistently having a hard time blocking them out and getting shots for us.”
For most of the first quarter, the Lady Bears (18-9) went toe-to-toe with the Lady Wildcats. Towards the latter stages of the quarter, however, Pearl River began to pull away taking an 18-11 lead before a Lynn Griffin 3-pointer pulled SMCC within four at 18-14 entering the second quarter.
Early in the second quarter, SMCC ramped-up its offensive play, getting big scores from a pair of post players in Courtney Bradford and JoJo Briggs, who helped the Lady Bears take a 21-20 lead.
The momentum did not last, however, as PRCC went on an 11-2 run to close out the quarter, putting SMCC down 31-23 at the half.
The Lady Bears made a 17-9 run in the first 7:31 of the second half to tie things up at 40-40 with 2:29 remaining in the third quarter.
Gabby Bunch nailed a pair of shots and went a perfect 5-for-5 from the free throw line to lead the charge for the Lady Bears. She was accompanied by another 3-pointer from Griffin and a pair of baskets from Shylia McGee.
The effort put SMCC back into the contest. A pair of free throws from Nia Hardison concluded the 17-9 run to tie the game at 40.
Not long afterward, Bunch made a pair, giving the Lady Bears the lead once again.
The Lady Wildcats closed out the quarter with a 3-pointer to retake the lead and, unfortunately for SMCC, it was the final lead change in the game.
In the fourth, PRCC continued to give SMCC trouble in the paint with big rebounds. The Lady Bears kept fighting and narrowed the gap to seven with just under two minutes to go. But it was not enough as the Lady Wildcats closed out the game, picking up the win and ending the very strong season for the Lady Bears.
McGee led all SMCC scorers with 15 points while Bunch poured in 10.
