MONTEVALLO, Ala. - The Montevallo Falcons women's basketball team secured a home quarterfinal playoff game in the GSC basketball tournament by beating the Shorter Hawks 82-70 in GSC regular season play. With the win, the Falcons will play the #3 team from the West Division on Tuesday night at Trustmark Arena with tipoff scheduled for 6:00 pm. The GSC game will be the first home conference playoff game for Montevallo since joining Division II in the mid-90's.
"One of the goals for this program was to host a GSC tournament game," said coach
Gary Van Atta. "Last year we made the tourney but went on the road so we continue to make strides with this team and I am very proud of them. Now we need to go out and win tomorrow."
The Falcons jumped out to a quick lead and led 28-18 at the end of the first quarter. UM extended the lead to 18 points with 4:10 left in the second quarter on a jumper by Sophomore Michaela Edwards but Shorter would not give in and proceeded to cut the lead to seven points and trail 45-38 at the half. Junior
Savannah Lee and Sophomore
Marisa Snodgrass led the Falcons in the first half with 11 points each.
The second half was very much like the first as UM again came out to extend their lead to sixteen points and finish the third quarter leading 66-50. With 7:29 left in the game the Falcons led by eighteen points but once again the Hawks continued to pressure the basket and cut into the Falcon lead. With 3:19 left in the game Shorter the Falcon lead was down to six points. Edwards was then fouled when attempting a three point shot and proceeded to make all three foul shots. Senior
Kiya Sain followed up with two free throws to push the lead to 11 as the Falcons closed out the game for a 12-point win.
Snodgrass led the Falcons with 19 points shooting 5-8 from three. Junior
Jordan Jones scored 17 points and Lee added 11 points to go along with a team leading 10 rebounds. Edwards came off the bench to record her career high with 14 points on the strength of 6-7 from the free throw line and knocking down her first two three-point shots.
UP NEXT: The Falcons conclude the GSC regular season hosting Shorter for the third time this year. Game time on Saturday is at 2:00 pm.
