Jimmies women's hoops beat Lewis-Clark 65-62 in NAIA tourney
Mar. 16—LEWISTON, Idaho — The No. 12-seeded University of Jamestown women's basketball pulled off their second consecutive upset in a 65-62 win over No. 4-seeded Lewis-Clark State College on Saturday, March 16, at the Warriors' P1FCU Activity Center. The Jimmies are headed to the Sweet 16 for the first time since the 2017-18 season.
"It's just so exciting for our players and our team and our university," Jimmies head coach Thad Sankey said. "It's awesome to compete on a national stage and be able to show people how special our program is. It's fun to celebrate with our team. We've worked hard and so much commitment from our players to make it happen."
The Warriors (26-6) got out to a quick 6-2 lead before the Jimmies fought back and took their first lead of the day at 13-12. The teams traded the lead back and forth through the remainder of the first quarter as there was one tie and two lead changes. The Jimmies were able to hit a three to head into the second up 19-16.
The second quarter was all Jimmies as they took an early 29-23 lead and pushed that out to as large as 15 points at 40-25 on a Kate Cordes three with 2:51 to go in the game.
"That run that we went on to go up 15 was mostly defensive, we froze them in the mid-20s and were able to incrementally add points and add points and add points and I thought that was a huge deal," Sankey said. "Then we weathered the storm in the third quarter, they came after us in the third quarter and they were plus 10 in the third quarter and we were tied up. So, just the calm and the confidence and the belief that we had in the huddle entering the fourth quarter was really a special feeling. Just looking at our team and seeing the confidence that we had that we were gonna push it back open ...."
The hosts would not go down without a fight though as they cut their deficit all the way down to one point on three separate occasions in the third quarter and hit a layup with nine seconds to go to tie the game up at 49.
The Jimmies' Megan Oswald hit a layup early in the fourth to push her team in front 51-49, but the Warriors continued to push taking a 56-51 lead. The Jimmies' Kia Tower immediately responded with a three to cut the deficit to 56-54 and that started a 9-4 run over the next three minutes to push the Jimmies in front 63-60. The Jimmies would not trail again. The Warriors went ice cold over the last three and a half minutes of the game as they missed their last eight shots in a row including three in the last 10 seconds of the game.
Heading into this game, the Warriors shot 34% from three-point range and held their opponents to shooting 28% from deep. In this contest, the Jimmies shot 12-for-25 for 48% from three and the Warriors shot 6-for-26 for 23.1% from deep.
The Jimmies look to continue their run at 1 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, when they take on No. 1-seeded Marian University.
