{"id":44520,"date":"2019-03-18T23:27:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T04:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=44520"},"modified":"2019-03-18T23:28:03","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T04:28:03","slug":"swosu-silences-tigers-hopes-for-elite-eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=44520","title":{"rendered":"SWOSU silences Tigers’ hopes for Elite Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By NICK SCHWIEN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a few minutes, the room went silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tatyana Legette struggled to fight back the tears and find\nthe right words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a pat on the back from coach Tony Hobson, Legette answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That moment happened in the press conference following the\nFort Hays State University women\u2019s basketball team\u2019s 88-77 loss to Southwestern\nOklahoma State University on Monday night in the NCAA Division II Central\nRegional title game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers struggled early, and the Lady Bulldogs pounced on\nthe opportunity, building a lead at one point in the first half that stretched\nto 18 points. SWOSU\u2019s pressure defense, FHSU\u2019s inability to hit close shots or\nsink free throws had left the Tigers in a large hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were down by quite a bit, and it would have been easy to\nthrow in the towel,\u201d Legette said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was the senior who willed the Tigers back into the\ncontest, and she had a little help from sophomore Whitney Randall off the\nbench, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I hit a couple of those and-ones, it was confidence\nboosting,\u201d said Legette, who finished her FHSU career with 19 points, 13\nrebounds and five assists. \u201cWe got back into it. We\u2019ve had a game like that\nbefore against Kearney where we were down like 20 and came back and did it. We\nnever lost faith. We knew we could still be in it. I think when things like\nthat happen, whether it\u2019s me or (Randall) hitting the and-one, we all get fired\nup and it radiates on everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers were in dire need of a spark. After trailing\n23-13 at the end of a foul-filled first quarter, the Lady Bulldogs (33-1)\npushed the lead to 35-17 with 7:41 to play in the second quarter on a 3-pointer\nby Taber Beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FHSU rallied all the way back to trail only 43-42 with 34 seconds remaining in the half when Randall hit two free throws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI missed my first layup, and after that I knew I just had\nto keep going and not lose confidence because it\u2019s kind of easy for me to lose\nit when you have other good players,\u201d said Randall, who finished with 15 of her\n20 points in the first half. \u201cI knew I just had to keep going and going at them\nand get to the free-throw line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told our team that there was one thing that I was really\nproud of and that\u2019s that they didn\u2019t quit,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cIt would have been\nreally easy for them to hang their heads against that good team. But they didn\u2019t\nquit and fought back into it a couple different times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SWOSU ended the first half with a 45-42 lead, mostly due to\nthe effort by senior guard Hayden Priddy \u2013 the GAC Player of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priddy made a living driving to the basket often, scoring 19\nof her game-high 32 points in the first 20 minutes. She connected on seven of\n10 shots from the field, including two of her four 3-point attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was definitely one of our game plans,\u201d said SWOSU coach Kelsi Musick. \u201cI 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\u2019t be as easy for them to trap us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priddy, who scored 33 points in the Lady Bulldogs\u2019 first two\nregional games, said she was relieved when her shots were falling early in the\ngame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday in shootaround, I couldn\u2019t hit the broad side of a barn,\u201d said Priddy, who was named the tourney\u2019s MVP. \u201cI couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t gone in in awhile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays closed within one point twice at the start of the\nthird quarter, sending the large crowd into a frenzy. But with FHSU trailing\n47-46, Priddy hit another 3-pointer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought Southwestern played really good,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cWe\nhad a hard time containing their point guard to start the game. We just got off\nto such a bad start. We expended a lot of energy just to get back in it by halftime.\nWe missed too many free throws in the first half \u2013 missed eight. We just didn\u2019t\nconvert on some easy shots inside. You have to make those. You have to make a\nhigh percentage from the line, make your easy shots because you don\u2019t get very\nmany of them against a good team like that. They\u2019ve won 32 games, and it wasn\u2019t\na fluke. They are a good team, and tonight they were better than us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bucket by Belle Barbieri, who finished with 19 points and\n10 rebounds, cut the margin to 52-50 a few possessions later. But it would\nprove to be as close as the Tigers would come the rest of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFort Hays, I give all the credit to them,\u201d Priddy said. \u201cThey\nhave an amazing fan base and amazing fans. It\u2019s something coach talked to us\nbefore the game, and she said it\u2019s going to be loud in there and that whenever\nthey go on runs, it\u2019s going to be really loud. So we had to silence it with our\nplay and the scoreboard. That was what we had talked about personally, me and\nmy teammates, that we had to jump on them from the get-go and silence the\ncrowd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SWOSU would push the lead back to double digits and eventually\nled 72-56 entering the final quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was one of the things we knew we had to do,\u201d Musick\nsaid. \u201cWe had to start hard, and we had to start fast because that\u2019s just how\nwe play. I knew if we could get comfortable, we could settle in for 40 minutes.\nI knew the crowd would be wild, but what more would we want? I think it\u2019s\nawesome to be in that situation. To be in front of so many people and to be\nable to display these players, I\u2019m just excited about it. But at the same time,\nwe knew we had to do that to settle in and just relax amid the chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A jumper by Madison Mittie with 3:15 to play pulled FHSU\nwithin 78-71, but the Lady Bulldogs would close out the game to advance to next\nweek\u2019s Elite Eight in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just couldn\u2019t be more proud of my team right now,\u201d said\nMusick, whose team never trailed in the game. \u201cWe talked about a lot of things\nthis year, and I feel like we kind of spoke some things into existence. But the\nway they came out in that first quarter, I was really proud of their effort and\nenergy, just their fight and their will. We didn\u2019t play well in the second\nquarter, but I think we did what we needed to in the third. Obviously, I can\nalways find mistakes, but at this point, I couldn\u2019t be more excited and more\nproud of this group of seniors and this team for buying in and believing for us\nto be at this point and win this Central Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hailey Tucker added 14 points while taking only seven shots,\nand she had a team-high 12 rebounds. Taylor Hedrick added 11 points for SWOSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers committed 14 turnovers, while the Lady Bulldogs\nfinished with only seven. SWOSU shot 45 percent from the field compared to 38\npercent by FHSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FHSU\u2019s undoing was the rough first quarter, shooting 24\npercent from the field, while SWOSU hit 57 percent of its shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we missed probably four or five layups, I didn\u2019t see\nanyone around us,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s just a cumulative effect. You\ndon\u2019t have time to take a deep breath. If you\u2019re not really wired in, just a\none-second lapse can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two teams had held down the top two spots in the regional\nrankings since they first came out this season. FHSU started at No. 1 before\nthe Lady Bulldogs grabbed the top spot in the next two weeks. The Tigers\u2019\nstrong showing in winning the MIAA postseason tourney was enough to give FHSU\nthe regional bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis 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\u2019t,\u201d Hobson said. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n