KINGSPORT, Tenn.— The Montreat women's basketball team closed out its time at The Show in Kingsport, Tenn. with one final matchup against the Shawnee State University Bears. On a neutral court at the Marriott MeadowView Conference Resort & Convention Center, the Cavaliers fell on the wrong side of a 64-51 final score and dropped to 5-4 on the year.
Katie Alexander drained a 3-point basket, while
Vaniyah Petty notched a free throw and
Rymiah Sanders tallied a bucket to put the Cavs in front midway through the opening quarter, 6-5. Shawnee State (5-0) rattled off five consecutive points to claim the lead, but
Grace Rinaldo answered with back-to-back makes from the field to level the score at 10; however, Montreat committed seven turnovers in the frame, and the Bears utilized a 5-0 spurt to enter the second quarter with a 15-10 advantage.
SSU doubled up the Cavaliers, 24-12, during the second period. Montreat recorded six fouls in less than two minutes, and the Bears poured in the frame's initial 11 points to extend their run out to 16-0 and their lead up to 26-10. A
Chesnee Freeman triple halted the stretch momentarily, and
Ayanna Varela scored five straight to keep Shawnee State from pulling away further. Despite the effort, 15 points off turnovers aided SSU in maintaining a 39-22 edge halfway through the matchup.
Montreat utilized an impressive third quarter to get right back into the contest.
Virginia Edmondson accumulated 10 points in the frame, the last of which trimmed the Cavs' deficit to single digits. Varela added a driving layup to cap off the 18-8 period, and the Cavaliers trailed by merely seven points (47-40) with 10 minutes to go.
Six Montreat turnovers during the initial 4:09 of the final quarter allowed the Bears to reestablish a double-digit lead (52-40). While a trio of Edmondson baskets in the paint helped pull the Cavs back within single digits late, the gap proved to be too much to overcome. Shawnee State scored eight of its last 10 points at the free-throw line as it sealed a 64-51 victory.
"We started off the game slowly, and against quality opponents like that, it's not going to go well," said head coach
Jamie Moore. "I'm proud of our group for rallying together in the third quarter, but it was just too big of a deficit."
The Bears forced 11 more turnovers than their counterparts (26-15), and they turned those turnovers into 23 points. Montreat won the rebounding battle (40-35), but SSU totaled more second chance points (13-7). The Cavaliers shot better overall and from deep, hitting 44.9 percent of their looks from the field (22-49 FG) and four of their 12 tries from beyond the arc (33.3 percent) compared to Shawnee State's 30.5 percent (18-59 FG) and 27.8 percent (5-18 3-pt FG) clips, respectively; however, the Cavs went just 3-for-8 at the line (37.5 percent) while the Bears shot 23-of-31 (74.2 percent) from the stripe.
Edmondson garnered the second double-double of her Cavalier career as she led the squad with both 18 points and 11 rebounds. Alexander dished out a team-best four assists.
Montreat begins a three-game homestand on Wednesday when it dives back into Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) action versus St. Andrews University. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at Kimmel Arena in Asheville, N.C.
