By NICK SCHWIEN
Tiger Media Network
For a few minutes, the room went silent.
Tatyana Legette struggled to fight back the tears and find the right words.
After a pat on the back from coach Tony Hobson, Legette answered.
That moment happened in the press conference following the Fort Hays State University women’s basketball team’s 88-77 loss to Southwestern Oklahoma State University on Monday night in the NCAA Division II Central Regional title game.
That moment of trying to find the right words and silence was eerily similar to what happened about an hour earlier in front of more than 5,000 fans at Gross Memorial Coliseum.
The Tigers struggled early, and the Lady Bulldogs pounced on the opportunity, building a lead at one point in the first half that stretched to 18 points. SWOSU’s pressure defense, FHSU’s inability to hit close shots or sink free throws had left the Tigers in a large hole.
“We were down by quite a bit, and it would have been easy to throw in the towel,” Legette said.
But it was the senior who willed the Tigers back into the contest, and she had a little help from sophomore Whitney Randall off the bench, too.
“When I hit a couple of those and-ones, it was confidence boosting,” said Legette, who finished her FHSU career with 19 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. “We got back into it. We’ve had a game like that before against Kearney where we were down like 20 and came back and did it. We never lost faith. We knew we could still be in it. I think when things like that happen, whether it’s me or (Randall) hitting the and-one, we all get fired up and it radiates on everyone.”
The Tigers were in dire need of a spark. After trailing 23-13 at the end of a foul-filled first quarter, the Lady Bulldogs (33-1) pushed the lead to 35-17 with 7:41 to play in the second quarter on a 3-pointer by Taber Beer.
Then Legette, the MIAA Player of the Year, rallied FHSU (32-2). The senior hit a layup to stop the SWOSU momentum and spur the Tigers on their own run.
FHSU rallied all the way back to trail only 43-42 with 34 seconds remaining in the half when Randall hit two free throws.
“I missed my first layup, and after that I knew I just had to keep going and not lose confidence because it’s kind of easy for me to lose it when you have other good players,” said Randall, who finished with 15 of her 20 points in the first half. “I knew I just had to keep going and going at them and get to the free-throw line.”
“I told our team that there was one thing that I was really proud of and that’s that they didn’t quit,” Hobson said. “It would have been really easy for them to hang their heads against that good team. But they didn’t quit and fought back into it a couple different times.”
SWOSU ended the first half with a 45-42 lead, mostly due to the effort by senior guard Hayden Priddy – the GAC Player of the Year.
Priddy made a living driving to the basket often, scoring 19 of her game-high 32 points in the first 20 minutes. She connected on seven of 10 shots from the field, including two of her four 3-point attempts.
“That was definitely one of our game plans,” said SWOSU coach Kelsi Musick. “I knew they were longer than us and big, but I felt like if we could get a step on them and get there, then it would be OK and we could use some of our pivots on them. That was definitely one of the things in our game plan and to pull the help side away from the rim a little bit so it wouldn’t be as easy for them to trap us.”
Priddy, who scored 33 points in the Lady Bulldogs’ first two regional games, said she was relieved when her shots were falling early in the game.
“Today in shootaround, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” said Priddy, who was named the tourney’s MVP. “I couldn’t throw it in the ocean. And, honestly, my confidence was a little shaken. I was a little moody, and I did not expect that. I don’t worry about how many points I have. I never worry about that. But it was just falling for me, and thank goodness my teammates kept pulling the defenders away from the rim so I could attack. And praise Jesus my 3 was going in today because they haven’t gone in in awhile.”
Fort Hays closed within one point twice at the start of the third quarter, sending the large crowd into a frenzy. But with FHSU trailing 47-46, Priddy hit another 3-pointer.
“I thought Southwestern played really good,” Hobson said. “We had a hard time containing their point guard to start the game. We just got off to such a bad start. We expended a lot of energy just to get back in it by halftime. We missed too many free throws in the first half – missed eight. We just didn’t convert on some easy shots inside. You have to make those. You have to make a high percentage from the line, make your easy shots because you don’t get very many of them against a good team like that. They’ve won 32 games, and it wasn’t a fluke. They are a good team, and tonight they were better than us.”
A bucket by Belle Barbieri, who finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, cut the margin to 52-50 a few possessions later. But it would prove to be as close as the Tigers would come the rest of the way.
“Fort Hays, I give all the credit to them,” Priddy said. “They have an amazing fan base and amazing fans. It’s something coach talked to us before the game, and she said it’s going to be loud in there and that whenever they go on runs, it’s going to be really loud. So we had to silence it with our play and the scoreboard. That was what we had talked about personally, me and my teammates, that we had to jump on them from the get-go and silence the crowd.”
SWOSU would push the lead back to double digits and eventually led 72-56 entering the final quarter.
“That was one of the things we knew we had to do,” Musick said. “We had to start hard, and we had to start fast because that’s just how we play. I knew if we could get comfortable, we could settle in for 40 minutes. I knew the crowd would be wild, but what more would we want? I think it’s awesome to be in that situation. To be in front of so many people and to be able to display these players, I’m just excited about it. But at the same time, we knew we had to do that to settle in and just relax amid the chaos.”
A jumper by Madison Mittie with 3:15 to play pulled FHSU within 78-71, but the Lady Bulldogs would close out the game to advance to next week’s Elite Eight in Ohio.
“I just couldn’t be more proud of my team right now,” said Musick, whose team never trailed in the game. “We talked about a lot of things this year, and I feel like we kind of spoke some things into existence. But the way they came out in that first quarter, I was really proud of their effort and energy, just their fight and their will. We didn’t play well in the second quarter, but I think we did what we needed to in the third. Obviously, I can always find mistakes, but at this point, I couldn’t be more excited and more proud of this group of seniors and this team for buying in and believing for us to be at this point and win this Central Region.”
Hailey Tucker added 14 points while taking only seven shots, and she had a team-high 12 rebounds. Taylor Hedrick added 11 points for SWOSU.
The Tigers committed 14 turnovers, while the Lady Bulldogs finished with only seven. SWOSU shot 45 percent from the field compared to 38 percent by FHSU.
FHSU’s undoing was the rough first quarter, shooting 24 percent from the field, while SWOSU hit 57 percent of its shots.
“When we missed probably four or five layups, I didn’t see anyone around us,” Hobson said. “But I think it’s just a cumulative effect. You don’t have time to take a deep breath. If you’re not really wired in, just a one-second lapse can do it.”
The two teams had held down the top two spots in the regional rankings since they first came out this season. FHSU started at No. 1 before the Lady Bulldogs grabbed the top spot in the next two weeks. The Tigers’ strong showing in winning the MIAA postseason tourney was enough to give FHSU the regional bid.
“This is a very difficult night because I thought if we would have played a little better, we had an excellent chance to win on our home floor. But we didn’t,” Hobson said. “This is a bad night, but it is by no means a bad year. This was a historic year. We broke so many records and won a lot of stuff. We just hoped to win one more.”
