USCA women make late charge for another clutch PBC win

Feb. 25—USC AIKEN 54, NORTH GEORGIA 50

Mark Miller's summation of his USC Aiken women's basketball team's performance Saturday sounded an awful lot like one of his recaps from the first few games of the season.

It wasn't pretty basketball, but it's a win.

But this isn't late November or early December — it's the end of the regular season, the final stretch of the grind of the Peach Belt Conference schedule.

And these Pacers just keep finding ways to win.

USCA wrapped up a regular-season sweep of North Georgia by overcoming an eight-point second-half deficit for a 54-50 win, the Pacers' third in a row, on Senior Day.

"I'm really proud of our team," Miller said. "A couple of times we could've folded, and we kept battling and fighting and scratching and clawing. Make a little run, get a little stop. We were getting out-rebounded in the first half. We turned that around in the second half, and I think that was the difference.

"We executed. We made some big shots and big plays, and we got some stops when we needed to. Obviously, of course, we did pretty well from the free throw line. I was really proud of our effort."

The Pacers (18-10, 12-6 PBC) finish the regular season with their most conference wins since going 13-6 in the 2014-15 season. They end conference play tied for second in the PBC with Clayton State and will be the No. 3 seed in the upcoming PBC Tournament — the teams split their regular-season meetings, but Clayton State takes the tiebreaker by virtue of its sweep of PBC champ Georgia Southwestern.

They trailed by eight early in the third quarter and started chipping away at the deficit, using a 13-2 run to surge ahead by six before the Nighthawks answered with some late buckets to tie the game heading into the fourth quarter.

Miller said a big reason for the turnaround came from a suggestion from assistant coach Britney Guy, who lobbied for the Pacers to switch to a man-to-man defense to disrupt North Georgia's offensive flow.

It worked. The Pacers got the stops they needed, while also cashing in on the offensive end and doing a better job of earning trips to the free throw line — they shot 18 free throws in the second half after attempting just four in the first, and they finished the game 16-for-22 from the stripe.

They also out-rebounded the Nighthawks by 10 in the second half for a 49-42 edge on the boards.

Hailey Unger's bucket with 5:35 remaining gave the Pacers the lead for good, as they had an answer every time North Georgia appeared to be on the verge of gaining the upper hand.

Emily Trushel, who led the Pacers in scoring with 13 points, hit a clutch 3-pointer with 4:38 left for a four-point lead, and Annalise Malone hit four consecutive free throws to ice the game.

Her last two attempts came with 3 seconds remaining and the Pacers clinging to a two-point lead. No big deal for the freshman.

"Yeah. No pressure," Miller confirmed with a laugh. "They're no longer freshmen. They've got to step in and play. That's the thing about them — they're not afraid. They're not going to do everything right, it's not going to happen all the time, but they're not afraid.

"That's growth, and that's really leadership by (the upperclassmen) to let them know, 'It's OK. Do what you do. We're with you, and we've got your back.' Sometimes it's going to be successful, and sometimes they're not. But they're not afraid to do it."

Senior Jentri Worley had 10 points, six rebounds and six assists, and the freshmen all had big contributions — Unger had nine points and five rebounds, Kelsie Woodard scored six points and pulled down 12 boards, and Malone and Breanna Gustave scored seven apiece with five and six rebounds, respectively.

They each made strong plays down the stretch to help the Pacers get the job done and send them into the postseason — which could include an NCAA Tournament bid — on a high note.

"I think it says we want it. We want it bad," Worley said. "We all know that, so we just have to come out here and prove it to everybody else."

Miller was doused by his players following the victory, arriving for his postgame press conference with a soaked suit. It was a good feeling to celebrate the Senior Day win, of course, especially considering how far this group has come since the beginning of the season.

"It's all the players. They just busted their tails. It took us a while to get started, and we knew it was going to be that way," he said. "We had a lot of new people, so we knew it was going to be that way. But I was very confident in our upperclassmen doing what they needed to do, and our freshmen keep getting bigger, keep getting bigger, keep making a big play, keep making a big play.

"I'm very proud of how hard they've worked. We're not done yet. We don't want to be done yet. We've got a lot more to play, but we keep getting better and we keep finding ways to win. That's what you've got to do this time of year. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to be a W."

Up next for the Pacers is the PBC Tournament, which begins Wednesday at Georgia Southwestern. The Pacers will face No. 6 seed Young Harris in the quarterfinals.

"It's been a long season, but we're not done yet," Trushel said. "We're really excited about where we are in the standings right now, but we just take it game by game and we're really excited to keep going."