INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State came into Saturday's regular season finale looking for revenge after their 104-101 double overtime loss to the Golden Eagles, and the Yellow Jackets responded in a big way, holding the Golden Eagles scoreless for over 12 minutes of game time through the first and second quarters and taking a huge 84-37 victory over their cross-county rivals. WVSU locks up the No. 2 Seed in the Mountain East Tournament that will be held in Wheeling, W.Va. next week on March 6-10.
West Virginia State closes the regular season with a record of 19-9, 14-6 in MEC play, while UC falls to 18-10, 13-7 in the MEC.
Seniors Hannah Shriver, Caroline Scott, Destiny Fields, Anysa Jordan, Shelby Harmeyer, and Imani Reid were honored prior to the game.
The two teams traded baskets back and forth through the first four minutes of the first quarter. UC took a brief 5-4 lead. Emyah Fortenberry got fouled, scored her layup and converted the and-one opportunity. ZZ Russell hit a fast-break layup shortly after, 9-5. UC hit a bucket with 4:32 showing on the clock, and it was the last points for the Golden Eagles for a while. State closed the quarter on a 6-0 run, capped by an Anysa Jordan layup.
UC continued to struggle from the field in the second quarter, while WVSU continued building their lead. UC head coach Tianna Kelly called a timeout following a Destiny Fields layup that ballooned the lead to 16 points, 23-7. Shortly after the timeout, Shanley Woods canned a 30 foot trey that put State up by 19 points. The lead got all the way up to 25 points at 32-7 before UC hit their only points of the second quarter with 2:30 to play until halftime. Another trey by Woods and a pair of free throws by Fields put State up by 28 points at the break, 37-9.
Nine points is the fewest points given up in a single half by a team in an MEC game.
Woods and Fields each nailed treys to open the scoring in the second half. The lead never dipped below 30 points however and nearly surpassed 40 points after a Fortenberry layup gave State a 59-20 lead with just over two minutes left. UC cut the lead to 35 points late, WVSU was still comfortably in the lead at the end of the quarter, 61-26.
WVSU's defense once again froze the UC score for an extended period of time, holding the Golden Eagles scoreless for nearly five minutes as Hannah Shriver capped a 16-2 run with a pair of free throws putting State up by 49 points, 77-28. Ashley Kerekes drained a three to put the Yellow Jackets up by a half-century, their largest lead of the game, 84-34 with 1:25 to play. A free throw and jump shot late by UC capped the game's scoring.
Fields led the Yellow Jacket attack with 20 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field, including 2-of-5 from long range and 10-of-10 from the free throw line. She added five boards, four steals and an assist. ZZ Russell was the only other double-digit scorer from the Yellow Jackets, she scored 10 points on 3-of-6 shooting and 4-of-4 from the charity stripe. State hit 23-of-30 free throws on the day for 76.1 percent. State outrebounded the Golden Eagles 47-32, and held the Golden Eagles to 25 percent shooting from the field. The Yellow Jackets also converted 27 Golden Eagle turnovers into 32 points, and scored 21 second chance points after gathering 18 offensive boards.
West Virginia State will play the noon game on Thursday, March 7 inside Wesbanco Arena against the winner of Glenville State vs. Notre Dame College which will be held on Wednesday, March 6 at Noon.
