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Gators Nearly Upset Wittenberg
February 8, 2008
MEADVILLE, Pa. – After falling to the Wittenberg by 31 points in their previous meeting this season, the Allegheny College Gators (7-13, 4-7 North Coast Athletic Conference) nearly toppled the Tigers (10-9, 9-3 NCAC), falling by one, 76-75, despite a career-high scoring effort from guard Hilary Collins (Franklin, Pa./Franklin) and a career-high assist total from Stephanie Wolf (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny).
The game was back-and-forth for the first ten minutes of the contest, as the largest lead by either team during that span was a four-point Allegheny lead after a Laura Magnelli (Moon Township, Pa./Moon Area) basket with 13:28 remaining in the opening period. Wittenberg led by three at 22-19 halfway through the period, before the Gators opened a 14-1 run, capped by a pair of Collins three-point baskets on back-to-back possessions, giving Allegheny the largest lead of the game. Wittenberg answered with an 8-0 run of their own, cutting the deficit to two, before Allegheny went on yet another run, this one 7-0, pushing the lead to nine, as the Gators went into the locker room leading by seven, 44-37.
Wittenberg’s Carrie Dyer scored to open the second half, giving her two of her career-high 22 points, cutting the deficit to five, before Collins hit another three-point basket, her fourth of the game, taking Allegheny’s lead to eight. The hosts continued to lead by eight a minute into the half, before the Tigers scored ten straight points to take their first lead since the 9:33 mark of the first half. The lead would be short lived, as the Gators used a 10-3 spurt to push ahead by five with a little over 12 minutes to play in the contest.
Allegheny pushed its lead to as many as seven after a Magnelli jumper with 9:05 to play, before the Gators went cold, missing all three of their shots from the field along with their only free throw attempt, and turning the ball over five times. The Tigers took advantage of the Gator miscues, going on a 10-0 run, and leading by three with 4:03 remaining in the contest. The two teams went back and forth, each scoring on their next four possessions, with the Tigers hitting a basket and the Gators following with one of their own, with Wittenberg leading by three with just under to minutes in the contest.
A free throw by Emilie Simone (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mt. Lebanon) cut the deficit to two with 41 seconds left, before Wittenberg’s Kristin Donawerth stuck the proverbial dagger in the heart of the Gators with a jumper on the right baseline with 14 seconds remaining, giving the Tigers their largest lead of the game at four. Brittany Bell (Greensburg, Pa./Hempfield) hit a three-point basket as time expired in the game, but it was a point too little, sending the Gators into the loss column by a 76-75 score.
Collins led a quartet of Gators in double figures with 18 points, hitting 7-of-10 shots from the field and 4-of-7 from long range, while Bell added 15, the third consecutive double-figure scoring game by the reigning conference Player of the Week. Wolf and Shannon Culbreath (Columbus, Ohio/Eastmoor Academy) scored 13 and 12 points, each, in the loss, with Magnelli and Simone narrowly missing out on the double-figure plateau with eight and seven tallies, respectively. Wolf dished out 13 assists, two off of the school record set by current Kenyon College head coach Suzanne Helfant, while Culbreath added four. Culbreath and Collins each pulled down five rebounds, as the Gators were dominated on the boards by a 39-18 margin in the game.
Allegheny made up for its struggles on the boards by forcing 18 turnovers including 13 steals, four by Wolf and three each from Bell and Culbreath; along with a blistering shooting pace in the game, hitting 28-of-50 shots from the field (56.0 percent) and 8-of-12 (66.7%) from long range in the loss.
Wittenberg put three players in double figures, led by Dyer’s 22 and Katie Gregorevich’s 18. Ali Rohlfs added 12 points along with a game-high nine rebounds.
The Gators take back to the hardwood tomorrow afternoon when they host the Quakers of Earlham College, victors over Hiram College this evening by a 73-64 score, with tip-off set for 2:00 p.m. The game is also another “Think Pink” game for the Gators, a Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) initiative to raise awareness about breast cancer.