Cold Spell Costs Davidson at College of Charleston, 54-53

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Box Score

CHARLESTON, S.C. — College of Charleston's senior Nikki Williams hit one-of-two free throws with four-tenths of a second left in her final home game, and Davidson scored just six points in the last 11 minutes of the game, allowing the Cougars to come back from 10 down for a 54-53 win at Carolina First Arena in women's basketball Southern Conference action on Monday evening.

Like in the first meeting between the two schools back on Jan. 12, Davidson (11-17, 10-9 SoCon) controlled the lead the majority of the game, but allowed College of Charleston to hang around and saw the Cougars steal another win. Davidson led by as many as nine in the first meeting, only to see CofC take a 74-71 win in the closing seconds.

Much was the same on Monday in the second meeting. Trailing 47-37 with 11:10 left, the Cougars went on a 10-0 run over the next six minutes to even the score on a Tonia Gerty layup at the 5:33 mark. Gerty later nailed a three-pointer at the 2:06 mark to break up a 49-all tie after Mandy Halbersleben (Cincinnati, Ohio) halted the Wildcats' scoring drought on a bucket inside to give Davidson back the lead.

Gerty was one of three Cougars to hit for double figures with 10 points, while Jade Hughes netted a team-best 14 and Deidra Jones closed with 13 points and six rebounds.

Then down 53-51, junior Monica Laune (Ashland, Neb.) calmly hit two free throws after getting fouled with 28 ticks left to knock things up again, before CofC went down for the last shot. After Hughes missed a driving layup, Williams got the offensive rebound and was fouled on her attempt for the put-back.

Williams nailed the first one, but air balled her second attempt, allowing the Wildcats to set up a full court out-of-bounds play and just four-tenths of a second on the clock. Laune launched a the full-court pass, but it skipped past Julia Paquette (Stockbridge, Ga.) as time expired.

As the Cougars (21-7, 14-6 SoCon) made their charge, Davidson lost its footing on offense, going cold from the field for almost six minutes. After Ashley Lax (Little Rock, Ark.) hit her 66th shot of the year from downtown at the 11:10 mark for a 47-37 lead, the Wildcats proceeded to go 0-for-6 from the floor and also missed two free throws, while coughing the ball up six times for the next six minutes to allow CofC to make its comeback.

Lax finished with eight points, hitting two three-pointers to surpass Janna Magette's 65 treys set during the 2001-02 season. Also setting a new single-season school mark was senior Mercedes Robinson (Baltimore, Md.) with her eight rebounds to give her 271 for the season, bettering Sally Howell's 268 boards during the 1981-82. The senior added seven points, but it was eight points below her season average.

Junior Alex Thompson (Asheville, N.C.) led all scorers with 16 points, guiding the Wildcats to early leads of five and 10 points in the first half.

Thompson found her stroke from three-land early and kept on hitting the three-ball. She opened the game draining a three-pointer from the right side, and later added another three-pointer and layup to give Davidson a 17-12 lead with 8:08 left in the first half.

A few minutes later, Thompson canned back-to-back treys to push the Wildcat lead out to 10 (26-16) and 4:04 remaining in the half. The junior hit home four treys in the stanza, but was shutout in the second half.

Davidson as a team went on to hit over 50 percent of its shots from the field in the first half, closing out at 14-of-27 for 51.9 percent. The Wildcats finished the game shooting 42.9 percent to snap a three-game streak of hitting at least 50 percent of its shots.

CofC kept things close in the first half as Ericka Williams scored seven quick points off the bench in the late stages of the half, and a three-pointer by Hughes brought the score to 34-26 at halftime.

The Wildcats close out the regular season with a 3 p.m. contest at Furman on Saturday, Feb. 28.

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