GB Women Outlast Loyola for 13th Straight Win
Green Bay women's basketball team was able to win its 13th straight game with a 65-62 victory at Loyola -->By: Ryan Rodig
Updated: February 7, 2013
CHICAGO, Ill. (GreenBayPhoenix.com)
- It wasn't always pretty, but the Green Bay women's basketball team was
able to win its 13th straight game with a 65-62 victory at Loyola on a
snowy Chicago Thursday night. The win improved the Phoenix to 18-2 and
8-0 in the Horizon League, while Loyola dropped
to 7-13 and 2-5 in conference play.
Green Bay opened the game with a 2-0 lead after Stephanie
Sension (Hopkins,
Minn.) bounced a shot off the glass. Loyola wasted no time responding
with a 4-2 advantage, the first of seven lead changes in the opening
frame. Both teams went back and forth
until the Ramblers established an 11-8 lead with 10:37 remaining.
Sension drew a foul on a putback attempt, hit both from the line and cut
the deficit to 11-10.
Senior Adrian Ritchie (De
Pere,
Wis.) drilled a three to put Green Bay back on top at 17-16 with 5:15
remaining in the half, but the Ramblers replied with a 7-0 run to take a
23-17 lead. The lead was the largest Loyola would hold on the night.
Jenny Gilbertson (Wabasha, Minn.) hit
her lone three of the night with 3:52 remaining in the half to cut the deficit to 23-20, and a basket plus the foul from Breannah Ranger cut
Loyola's lead to 26-25 going into the half.
Sension
gave Green Bay the spark it needed to open the half, completing a
three-point play to start a
9-2 run. Ritchie scored on consecutive possessions to push the advantage
to 34-28, the largest lead the Phoenix would hold in the game.
A three from Loyola's Monica Albano just seconds later cut Green Bay's lead to just 34-33. Albano finished
with a game-high 23 points.
The
Phoenix held on in the back-and-forth battle until the Ramblers took a
one-point lead with 9:04 remaining.
A technical foul on the Loyola bench gave Ritchie two attempts from the
charity stripe, and she delivered to regain the lead at 49-48.
Both teams were in the bonus with 7:50 remaining, and the Ramblers used a one-and-one to hold a 53-52
advantage. Loyola's Taylor Johnson stole the ball and laid it in on the other end for a 57-55 Loyola lead at the 3:41 mark, but Lydia Bauer (Lake
Zurich,
Ill.) used a spin move in the post to knot things at 57-57. The tie was
short-lived, however, as a Lyndsey Book three put the Ramblers back on
top 60-57.
With the shot clock winding down, redshirt sophomore Megan
Lukan (Barrie,
Ontario) drove through three Ramblers and laid it in, drawing the foul
in the process. She completed the three-point play to tie things at
60-60 with 2:43 left in the game. Troy Hambric
put Loyola back on top with a putback attempt with less than two minutes
to play, but Ranger used a shot fake in the post to give the game its
eighth and final tie with 1:32 remaining.
Ranger
scored again in the post on Green Bay's next possession, and Bauer
added a free throw with 18 seconds
remaining. Loyola had the ball in the final seconds, but Ayrealle
Beavers' attempt from behind the arc with two seconds remaining rimmed
off to seal the 65-62 win for the Phoenix.
Ritchie
led Green Bay with 22 points and eight rebounds, while Ranger added 11
and five boards. Sension
had nine and six, while Lukan added nine points on a perfect 5-5 from
the line. Four Phoenix players had two assists, while Bauer and Sension
each had two steals. The Phoenix shot a season-low 14.3 percent from
behind the arc hitting just 2 of 14 attempts from
long range, but shot better than 75 percent from the free-throw line for
the fourth straight game.
Green
Bay will return home to host Milwaukee on Saturday as part of Alumni
Weekend, kicking off a four-game
homestand. Numerous former Phoenix players will be in attendance, and
banners will be unveiled recognizing the accomplishments of Green Bay's
teams before the program moved to Division I for the 1981-82 season.
