The Southwest Mississippi Community College women’s basketball team had a short trip to the MACJC state tournament after they were eliminated Monday in a 50-41 loss to Itawamba at Pearl River Community College.
The loss drops Southwest to 14-10, but doesn’t necessarily mark the end of their season. The Lady Bears will now wait until this weekend to find out if they will be part of next week’s Region 23 tournament at Mississippi College.
Points were hard to come by in the first half as baskets by Fredrikah Wilson and Katrina Littlepage gave the Lady Bears an early 4-2 lead with 16:52 left in the first half. Itawamba (6-8) then took a 6-5 lead on Jasmine Hampton’s layup with 11:52 to play in the half.
The Lady Indians stretched their lead to nine points with 5:54 left on the clock and went into the break with a 20-18 lead.
A jumper from Wilson and Alexis Avery’s 3-pointer gave Southwest a 23-22 lead with 18:36 to play in the game. An old-fashioned 3-point play by Littlepage with 17:53 left in the game then gave the Lady Bears their biggest lead of the night at 26-22.
The lead was short-lived as Itawamba battled back to tie the game at 26-26 with 13:45 left to play. A layup by Hampton then put them up 28-26 with 11:47 to go. The Lady Bears would stay close, but were unable to get the final push they needed to advance to Wednesday’s semifinals.
“I thought we played extremely hard and extremely physical,” Southwest coach Brent Harris said. “But (Itawamba) did, too. It was like a championship boxing match. We went toe-to-toe with them. But in the end they just found a way to score a few more points.”
Littlepage led the Southwest offense with 15 points. Wilson had a double-double, with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Cassie Berry added six points while April Levy scored four and Avery three. The Lady Bears made seven of 14 free throws.
Itawamba’s Ty-Nita Baker led all scorers with 19 points.
Meanwhile, the SMCC men will play Northwest (16-6), the No. 2 seed from the North, today in the first round of the state tournament.
The winner of today’s game will play the winner of Pearl River and Coahoma on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Southwest (15-8) and Pearl River split two games during the regular season, including the Bears’ 68-66 home upset win earlier this month.
