On Monday, Pauline Love’s heavily contested three-point shot fell in with 2.3 seconds remaining, and with it fell the hopes of the Lady Bulldogs to extend their season.For Southern Mississippi, the shot secured a 62-61 victory and a trip to Ann Arbor, Mich., to face the Michigan Lady Wolverines in the third round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
For the Lady Bulldogs, the shot meant a second straight season would end on the road in the second round of the WNIT. State finished the year at 16-15, while USM improved to 21-13.
The Lady Bulldogs led the game by as much as 15 with ten minutes remaining, but were held to only six points from that point on.
Two of those points came with the game tied and only thirteen seconds left in the game. Miayorka Johnson sank a layup as the shot clock wound down to give MSU the lead and set up the heartbreaking heroics of USM’s Love.
MSU head coach Sharon Fanning said she felt good about her team’s chances to come out with a win.
“We put ourselves in a position to win a ballgame. I’m disappointed that we dropped the lead, but they made some big buckets down the stretch, and we missed some shots,” Fanning said.
Fanning said the team had discussed the adjustments they needed to make to deal with USM’s offense.
“We talked during the timeout about how to guard, and switching on threes,” Fanning said. “We just didn’t contest the shot hard enough. The bottom line is Love came up and hit a huge three.”
Marneshia Richard led the State scoring effort with 12 points. Imesia Jackson followed closely with 11, while Tysheka Grimes and Johnson added nine each.
USM’s scoring was led by Love, who tossed in 18, followed by Kendra Reed with 15 and Stephanie Helgeson, who had 13.
Fanning said she was pleased with the overall effort from her team.
“I can look back on this last game and say we played hard for forty minutes,” she said. “We didn’t play as good as we had to play or as good as I think we’re capable of playing, but we had great effort.”
MSU junior Donnisha Tate, who shared the team lead in rebounds with Imesia Jackson, spoke up about her team’s play in the second half.
“We made some mistakes. We had bad shot selection and didn’t capitalize on our free throws,” Tate said. “When we got a 15 point lead, we kind of relaxed on it.”
Though the team is moving into the off season, they don’t have much time off before jumping back into their routine. Fanning is looking toward next year’s team, which she said looks like a promising one.
“As we look at next year’s team, it’s the first time in a long time that we’ve said we have a veteran team with experience. Everybody that started the last game will be returning, and hopefully that leads to success for us in the future,” she said.
Fanning said the team has to work on its fundamentals to be able to consistently win next season.
“Winning is a process. It’s something that you have to understand how to do,” Fanning said. “We should be able to put a team on the floor that understands how to win.”
Tate is one of the veteran players that the Lady Bulldogs will look to for leadership moving forward. Tate acknowledged the importance of strong leadership in a successful season.
“When it comes to next year, I’m going to pick it up a little bit and lead the younger players,” Tate said. “I look forward to being that team leader and being more aggressive.”
The Lady Bulldogs begin individual workouts next week, and those will continue for three weeks. Team practices resume in August.