Londaisha Smith (1) attempts a free throw during the first half of St. Andrews’ win against St. Thomas on Friday. Smith had the game winning free throws with three seconds left and had 12 points to co-lead the team.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Katie Moore (30) plays defense in the post against Sophie Vandyke (13). Moore had 12 points to share the team lead with Smith.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Jamicia Davis (20) goes up for a contested layup during the Knights’ matchup with the Bobcats. Davis led the Knights in assists with four.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Angelina Jordan (2) defends Morgan Taylor (7).
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights women’s basketball team defeated the St. Thomas University Bobcats in a 50-48 final from Harris Court on Friday night. St. Andrews claws a bit closer to .500 and improves to 5-7 on the season with the victory while St. Thomas falls to 6-4 with the loss. Head Coach Denise Hannah was glad to see her team remain poised under the pressure of a close game and find a way to win even if it wasn’t always pretty.
“It shows resiliency and they’re starting to understand that defense wins games,” Hannah said. “They stayed calm and kept playing hard to let the chips fall in our favor.”
The Knights started out a bit slow, falling behind 4-0 after one minute of action and 6-0 after four minutes before finally scoring their first points of the game on a layup from Londaisha Smith after 4:31 had elapsed. Despite trailing by six with just 53 seconds left in the quarter and never leading, the Knights would be down just 13-10 after 10 minutes of action. A steal and layup from Jamicia Davis helped ensure that.
St. Andrews then quickly tied the game one minute into the second period on a successful three-pointer from AJ Price and then took a 15-13 lead at the three-minute mark thanks to a successful jump shot from Katie Moore. The Knights managed to hold St. Thomas without any points for the first 4:21 of the quarter, though they couldn’t hold them down forever as St. Andrews trailed by as many as five at one point and the Bobcats went into halftime up 29-28. Though St. Andrews did let a lead slip away late in the half, Hannah made sure to tell her team that massive adjustments weren’t necessary, rather they simply had to make a few minor tweaks and remain disciplined in their approach.
“When we went in at halftime, I just told them it’s our home floor and that we’ve worked hard for it,” Hannah said. “Just hang in there, we’re not doing a bad job on defense we just need to clean a few things up and the shots will start falling as we keep driving.”
The Knights started the second half the way they started the first: slow. St. Thomas scored four unanswered points within the first 1:36 of action as it took St. Andrews nearly three minutes to score any points. The Knights then managed to even the score at 33 shortly after thanks to a successful and one conversion from Moore. The rest of the quarter remained very competitive with neither side gaining a serious advantage. St. Andrews would end the period up 39-37 thanks to a made three-pointer from Smith with 48 seconds remaining in the quarter.
The final 10 minutes remained as intense as the first 30. The Bobcats quickly tied the game and then took the lead on consecutive jump shots from Samantha Vales within the first minute, though the Knights responded with a successful layup from Moore and jump shot by Maddison Larrimore (score was 45-42 with 8:10 left). The teams continued to trade leads for much of the quarter with neither side leading by multiple possessions at any point. After Joey Delancy’s layup tied the game with just 21 seconds left, the Knights had one last chance to win the game in regulation and did so thanks to a pair of clutch free throws by Smith with just three seconds on the clock and one more ensuing defensive stop by the Knights to preserve the nail-biting victory.
Smith shared the team lead in scoring with 12 points and also paced the Knights in rebounds with 10 while adding two assists and a steal in the victory. Moore also had 12 points, seven rebounds and an assist. Davis had four assists to lead the team.
Many of the team statistics were very close. The biggest areas of advantage for St. Andrews were three-point percentage (31.3%-20%), rebounds (38-32) and second chance points (9-6). The game as a whole had 10 lead changes, six ties and no lead larger than six for either team. Though the Knights lost the turnover margin by committing 11 of their own compared to just eight for St. Thomas, the impact St. Andrews had on the game by drawing several offensive fouls was one Hannah prepared for with a purpose leading into the matchup.
“I spent two years as an assistant coach there, so I know how they coach and how they run their offense,” Hannah said. “Any team that runs a dribble drive offense is focusing on getting in the paint to score so I told them if you take the charges, you’ll see the complexity of the game change.”
The Knights will now have the weekend off before getting back at it on Monday afternoon with a conference matchup against Milligan. Tipoff is scheduled for noon from Harris Court. Though the win was nice, Hannah still thinks there’s room for improvement on the offensive side of the ball ahead of their matchup with the Buffaloes.
“We still need to execute better on offense,” Hannah said. “We need to clean up our offensive sets and get back to the drawing board tomorrow to get ready for Milligan.”