Box Score
SALISBURY, NC – The Livingstone women's basketball team overcame an 11-point second-half deficit to force the game into overtime, but the shots wouldn't fall for the Blue Bears in the extra period as they fell to the Tigers of St. Paul's College 89-86 Monday evening.
Senior guard Kayler McBride led the Blue Bears with 21 points. Junior guard Montiya Harrison added 16 points, sophomore forward Cassaundra Rhodes scored 14 and sophomore forward Shaquetta Brooks also added 14 points.
Livingstone jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but the Tigers responded with an 11-0 run to go up 11-4. The Blue Bears responded with a 7-0 run of their own to regain the lead at 13-11. The teams battled back and forth and Livingstone was able to pull away slightly with 11:08 remaining, 22-17, but St. Paul's wasn't going away. Over the next four minutes, the Tigers slowly cut into the Livingstone lead and the game was tied at 26-26 with 7:25 left in the first half.
Over the final fine minutes of the first half the two teams traded buckets back and forth. Livingstone claimed the largest lead over the last five minutes of four points with 3:26 left, but only held a one-point advantage at the half 40-39.
Rhodes led the Blue Bears at the half with 13 points and five rebounds in 18 minutes of playing time. McBride also added nine points and four boards.
A hot-shooting Tiger team and a cold-shooting Blue Bear team spelled trouble for Livingstone early in the second half. Livingstone led by three early, but quickly fell behind 11 with 13:38 to play in the second half. The Blue Bear cut the deficit to six, but St. Paul's got it back to 10 with 10:43 to play.
Trailing by 10, the Blue Bears went on a 7-0 run in just over a minute to cut the Tiger lead to three with 9:26 remaining. With every Livingstone run, so came a St. Paul's run. The small deficit was short-lived as the Tigers had increased their lead back to eight with 5:34 left.
With 3:38 showing on the clock, the Blue Bears trailed by nine. One minute and 21 seconds later, the Blue Bears trailed by only two at 77-46 with 2:17 left. McBride stepped to the free throw line with 1:13 to play, connecting on both free throw attempts and tied the game at 76-76.
McBride committed a foul with 38 seconds on the clock, but the Tigers missed both of their free-throw attempts and the Blue Bears brought the ball up the court. The Blue Bears looked for the perfect shot with under 20 seconds to go and eventually found Brooks all alone under the basket. She took the pass, put the ball off the glass and into the hoop to give Livingstone a 78-76 lead. St. Paul's brought the ball to midcourt and took a timeout. Out of the timeout Juantale Cook connected on a jumper with less than two seconds left to tie the game. A last-second heave by McBride fell short and the game headed to overtime.
In the overtime, St. Paul's got the first bucket to go up by two, but Livingstone battled back to go on a 5-0 run to go by four with 2:44 remaining. The Tigers responded with a 7-2 run of their own to regain a one-point advantage with 46 seconds on the clock. In the final minute the Blue Bears stayed close thanks to missed free throws by the Tigers, but couldn't capitalize. Junior guard Elicia Gilliam-Washington missed a jumper with one second on the clock and Cassaundra Rhodes was called for a foul which all but ended the contest. St. Paul's hit their final two free throws to reach the final score of 89-86.
As a team the Blue Bears shot 37.7 percent from the field while St. Paul's hit 48.6 percent of their shots. The Tigers pulled down 52 rebounds to the Blue Bears' 44.
With the loss, the Blue Bears fall to 2-2 overall and 0-2 in the CIAA,
The women will be back in action on Wednesday when they host cross-town rival Catawba College at 5:30 p.m. at Trent Gym.
