Wofford College Terriers are Grand-Final bound. The Terriers defeated ETSU 75-64 to book a a place in the Southern Conference Tournament championship game for the first time in Wofford’s history.
Former Canterbury Wildcat Helen Matthews couldn’t quite repeat her quarter-final heroics (a career high 16 points and 8 assists) but did contribute a handy 5 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists in 26 minutes.
Wofford will meet the winner of the Mercer v Furman semi-final tie in Sunday’s grand Final.
It wasn’t such good news for fellow Cantabrian Tsubasa Nisbett as Georgia Southern University were blown away 94-61 by Texas State in the Sun Belt Conference. Burnside High School alumni Nisbett finished with 6 points (3/4FG) and a pair of rebounds.
There were mixed results for the Kiwi contingent in action in the West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas.
The trio of Kiwis in the St Mary’s, California Gaels team all featured in the box scores as the Gaels defeated Pacific 69-55 and will now face third seeded San Francisco in the quarter-finals tomorrow.
Tall Fern Amy West, in just her fifth game back after a two-month injury lay-off tallied 6 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists while Jade Kirisome posted 2 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and Tayla Dalton scored 2 points.
Should St Mary’s upset San Francisco they will line-up against Tegan Graham, Kaylee Smiler and second seeded BYU in the semi-finals on Monday.
However defending champions University of Portland Pilots buckled badly to lose 74-56 against Loyola Marymount.
Emme Shearer, named to the WCC All-Freshman Team recently, scored 4 points and claimed 3 rebounds for Portland.
Third seeded Davidson College Wildcats defeated George Mason University 99-67 in the quarter-finals of the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships.
Sam Mennenga, enjoying a strong freshman season at Davidson, posted 4 points, 5 rebounds and a couple of steals in the decisive win. Davidson, seeded three, face number two Virginia Commonwealth in a semi-final tomorrow.
A number of players are engaged in the final weekend of regular season games ahead of more conference tournaments next week.
California State University Riverside recorded a 72-68 win at UCL Northridge in the Big West Conference. Flynn Cameron made 4 from 7 threes in his 14 points and Angus McWilliam, in his first start of the season, posted 7 points and 5 rebounds.
Colorado State led by as many as 13 points but were eventually run down by Nevada to lose 85-82 in the Mountain West Conference. Freshman James Moors finished with 9 points, 4 rebounds a block and a steal for Colorado.
Anzac Rissetto enjoyed a perfect shooting night but it wasn’t enough to secure North Carolina Charlotte 49ers the win. The former Junior Tall Blacks centre scored made all 6 shots from the field and both free-throws on his way to 14 points in a 75-67 loss to Marshall University.
In the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference semi-final Dallas Baptist University were defeated 88-77 by West Texas A&M.
William Heather, after receiving an Honourable Mention when the Lone Star All-Conference Team was named on Thursday, scored 11 points (5/7FG) for Dallas Baptist.
Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones scored 15 points as Hawaii at Hilo improved to 10-1 in the PacWest Conference with a 78-62 win at Chaminade. Tait-Jones is Hilo’s leading rebounder this season and bagged 7 more boards in this one.
Tomorrow Kruz Perrott-Hunt (South Dakota), Dan Fotu and Quinn Clinton (both St Mary’s, California) are involved in conference quarter-finals while Tom Webley (University of Hartford) will suit up for an America East Conference semi-final engagement.
