PINEVILLE, La. – The Louisiana College Lady Wildcats basketball team made history Friday night by winning the first American Southwest Conference tournament game in the history of LC basketball. The Lady Cats had previously been 0-3 in tournament games but defeated the Hardin-Simmons Cowgirls 72-69 to book a spot in Saturday's semi-finals.
The Wildcats are also the only hope for the Eastern Division, as the other three quarter-finals were won by the Western Division entrant. In fact, LC's victory was the first ASC Tournament game won by a team from the Eastern Division since the opening round of the 2007 tournament, which saw ETBU defeat Mary Hardin-Baylor.
It was never an easy win for the hosts, even when the Lady Wildcats extended a four point halftime lead to fifteen in the second half. The visitors from Hardin-Simmons continued to chip away at the lead, and it seemed that every time up and down the floor, the Cowgirls would earn three-points, whether it was on 3-7 shooting from behind the arc by Alexis Popelar or the old fashioned way by Jasmine Lewis and Lindsey Newcombe.
Popelar, who transferred to Hardin-Simmons from LeTourneau, led the Cowgirls with 16 points, while Lewis and Newcombe pitched in 12 and 14, respectively.
A triple by Popelar helped Hardin-Simmons pull to within one at 70-69, completing a comeback from a 68-53 deficit. The four-seed from the West had the ball with a chance to take the lead in the last seconds, but a three-point attempt was blocked by Natasha Gottlieb, who had just returned to the court as a defensive substitution.
“That was the reason she was in the game – for her defense, and she came up big for us,” Coach Richard said of Gottlieb.
The scoring leaders should come as no surprise to Lady Wildcat fans. Christy Pantallion pumped in 16 points on 8-18 from the field. Voneshia Williams had 14 points and 14 rebounds, while Tillisha Givens had 14 and 13 of her own.
“This tournament was definitely the top 8 teams,” said Richard, when asked about the field of competition. Richard admitted there should probably have been more victories for the East, but was excited about the opportunity to represent their Division against the three teams remaining from the West.
Givens stressed the importance of having home-court advantage, and the drive that the team felt to not only win their first tournament game, but to do it in front of a home crowd. “We didn't want to disappoint our fans,” said the junior. “They came out here to support us and we wanted to give them a show. We wanted to do it for them.”
The Wildcats will try to do it again on Saturday afternoon, when they face the Lady Yellow Jackets of Howard Payne, who beat Mississippi College in the third game of the afternoon by a 73-68 margin. “They're a very complete team, so we're going to have to be on our toes defensively,” said Givens.
The first semi-final match features the top seed in the West, Mary Hardin-Baylor, who dismantled East Texas Baptist University 58-26. The Lady Crusaders will face off against McMurry University, who upended Texas-Dallas 63-54.
