Bucknell Women's Basketball Advances to PL Semifinal with 64-54 Win Over Lehigh
March 2, 2006
WORCESTER, Mass. - Kesha Champion (Chesapeake, Va./Indian River) scored a career-high 20 points and Lindsey Hollobaugh (Loganton, Pa./Central Mountain) added 16 as the third-seeded Bucknell women's basketball team defeated sixth-seeded Lehigh 64-54 Thursday evening at the Hart Center. The Bison, who won their 18th game for the fifth time in program history, improved to 18-10 overall. The Mountain Hawks ended their 2005-06 campaign with a 10-18 record. Trailing 16-14 near the end of the first half, Bucknell used a 10-0 run that turned into a 22-7 run spanning the end of the first half and beginning of the second to take a 36-23 lead with just over 15 minutes to play on a jumper by Champion. The Bison extended the bulge out to a game-high 15 points on three occasions. Bucknell had possession of the ball with a 15-point lead after a steal by Hollobaugh, but after missing a shot and getting her own rebound she traveled. Adrienne Blount, who led Lehigh with 17 points, quickly started a 10-0 Mountain Hawk run that spanned just over three minutes to close the gap to 51-46. Blount tallied four points during the run, while Jenny Callan and Sara Ellis each tallied three. Callan and Ellis each tallied 13 points to join Blount in double figures. After Lehigh closed the gap down to five points Bucknell scored five straight to extend the lead back to double figures. Champion knocked down the third of her career-high three 3-pointers and then Amanda Brown (Richardson, Texas/L.V. Berkner) converted a three-point play. From there, Lehigh tried to extend the game by fouling, but the Bison knocked down 7 of 10 free throws in the final 90 seconds of play. The Mountain Hawks could not draw closer than eight points in the final minutes. In the first half Bucknell did not score until 14:36 remained, but still tied the score at 2-2 with its first field goal. The Bison missed their first eight shots, while the Mountain Hawks made just 1 of 10 in the first eight-plus minutes of play. The score was just 7-4 Bucknell, more than nine minutes into the contest. After a flurry of scoring midway through the first half that featured two ties and two lead changes, Bucknell tallied the final eight points of the first stanza and took a 22-16 lead into halftime. Lehigh did not convert a field goal over the final 5:46 of the first half as Bucknell scored the final eight points. After playing a first half that was plagued with 28 total turnovers - 14 for each team - there was just 18 total in the second half. The Bison ended with 25 miscues, while the Mountain Hawks finished with 21. Brown joined Champion and Hollobaugh in double figures with 10 points off the bench for Bucknell. Sarah Latham (Mystic, Conn./Fitch) and Ashton Sprouse (Dayton, Ohio/Archbishop Alter) added four and two points off the bench, respectively, as Bucknell's reserves outscored Lehigh's 16-11. Hope Foster (Washington, D.C./Dunbar) scored eight points and grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds. She is averaging more than 12 per game over the last four contests. Overall, Bucknell outrebounded Lehigh 39-32, including 19-13 after halftime. The Bison defense limited Lehigh to 36.8 percent shooting, while the offense blistered the nets at 42 percent, including 52 percent in the second half. Bucknell, which improved to 10-14 all-time in Patriot League Tournament play and avenged last season's first-round loss, will take on either second-seeded Holy Cross or seventh-seeded American in Saturday's semifinal game. Tip off is slated for 1 p.m. at the Hart Center. |
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