Box Score The Gannon women's basketball team now knows what it's like to be a dry erase board.
At halftime on Tuesday (Mar. 26) at the NCAA Elite Eight in San Antonio, Gannon led the second-ranked Ashland University Eagles, 31-25. A couple of swipes later, everything was gone like it never existed.
The Eagles outscored the Golden Knights, 26-4 over the first eight minutes of the second half and had a 51-35 lead with 12:01 to play. That was too much for the Golden Knights to wipe away. Their season was over and Ashland was moving on to play fifth-ranked Western Washington on Wednesday (Mar. 27) in the Final Four. The Eagles defeated Gannon, 74-63, running their record in Elite Eight games to 3-1. Over the last two years, Ashland is 9-1 in the NCAA postseason.
This is the second consecutive year AU has reached the national semifinals. The Eagles are 35-1 and they have won 11 consecutive games. Since the start of last season they are 68-3. They are the highest ranked team left in this field. On Tuesday afternoon, Clayton State, the nation's No. 1 team, lost for the first time this season, 81-68 to Augustana. Western Washington advanced to the semifinals with an 80-76 overtime win over Nova Southeastern. Wednesday's other semifinal has Augustana matched against Dowling. Dowling was a 60-44 winner of Colorado Mesa on Tuesday.
Making Gannon disappear was no easy feat. Entering Tuesday's game, Gannon had won 142 of its last 151 games when leading at halftime. That's a stretch that dates back to 2005-06. This was only the third time this season the Eagles were behind after the first 20 minutes and it was the largest halftime deficit they had faced this season.
All of that changed in the opening minutes of the second half. Ashland players started to score from every spot on the floor and defensively, the Eagles choked off everything the Golden Knights wanted to accomplish. For the game, AU led in points in the paint, 30-24, in second chance points, 15-5, and in points off of turnovers, 19-8. The Eagles out-rebounded Gannon, 42-26 and had 17 offensive rebounds.
"I think at halftime we talked a lot about being tough," said senior forward Daiva Gerbec (Dublin, Ohio/Bishop Watterson). "At halftime we weren't making shots, but we also weren't playing tough. The second half, even if we weren't making shots we had to win the toughness battles. We offensive rebounded, I thought we were first on the floor and I thought we played really good defense."
Gerbec finished with a game-high 23 points, 12 in the second half. Senior guard-forward Kari Daugherty (Fresno, Ohio/Dayton) scored 15 points and secured 15 rebounds. She's played 10 NCAA postseason tournament games in her career and has 10 double-doubles.
Sophomore guard Taylor Woods (Wadsworth, Ohio) had 21 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds in 40 minutes. She was 4-of-8 from three-point range, 3-of-5 in the second half. Woods scored 14 second half points.
"She got away from us a little bit," admitted Gannon head coach Cleve Wright. "She's a great player. I recruited Taylor Woods and about half the players on their team, we recruit Ohio. For one reason or another, they aren't here. Taylor Woods really stepped up. I felt she needed to step up tonight. Unfortunately for us she did."
That was especially true in the first half when guard Alyssa Miller (Zanesville, Ohio/Tri-Valley) was forced to the sideline with two fouls. This is the first NCAA postseason experience for Woods and Gerbec, who missed last year's March run due to injuries. Against Gannon, Woods was one of the leaders who didn't let the Eagles come apart emotionally in the first half.
"I thought we stayed very composed and that was one of keys to success," said AU head coach Sue Ramsey. "We haven't had very many games this year where we were down at halftime, but we weren't rattled. We knew we weren't playing our best basketball and Gannon was playing extremely well, hitting a high percentage."
That second half spurt that put the game away included three triples and nine points from Woods, six points each from Daugherty and Miller, four points by Gerbec and one by senior guard Lindsay Tenyak (Wadsworth, Ohio).
Tenyak had just four points, but on this night she earned kudos for the points she took away in guarding Brittany Batts. Batts had 13 points, two after halftime. Guard Noelle Yoder (Millersburg, Ohio/Bowling Green) also shadowed Batts and did well in her 11 minutes, but it was Tenyak who spent the most time on her.
"Lindsay's a seasoned veteran," reminded Ramsey. "It wasn't an easy assignment. Lindsay will sleep well tonight."
Gannon was 3-of-9 in the second half on three-pointers. Ashalnd out-rebounded Gannon, 24-13 in the second half.
"The key to the game tonight, in the second half, we struggled, we did not put the ball in the basket, we struggled with that," said Wright. "We allowed them to get rhythm and allowed them to see the floor more than we really wanted to. I thought they were able to skip, get some threes, get some wide open looks they didn't get in the first half. They're a great team and you can't allow that to happen."
In the second half, AU was 4-of-8 on three-point shots and 13-of-16 (81.3 percent) at the free throw line.
Some solid outside shooting helped Gannon (31-5) grab that early lead. The Golden Knights, who are 10th in the country in three-point field goal percentage (36.5) and 23rd in triples per game (7.1), hit five of their first six three-point attempts. The Golden Knights did an excellent job of spreading the floor and kicking the ball out to their sharpshooters. At halftime, the Golden Knights were 6-of-13 on three-pointers.
As promised, Gannon attacked the Eagles with a deep lineup that forced the Eagles to adjust to various combinations. AU also had to play five minutes without Miller, who picked up her second foul with 8:07 to play in the first half. Without her, the Eagles weren't as fluid on offense as usual.
Gannon sent several players at Daugherty in an effort to control her. The first player to get that assignment was Jen Papich, but she had two fouls with 13:19 remaining in the half. GU was deep enough to handle that. Daugherty was held to five points in the first half (1-of-7 from the floor). Most of AU's offense came from Gerbec, who had 11 points. Woods had seven first half points.
Doriyon Glass was Gannon's leading scorer with 17 points. Nettie Blake had eight rebounds.
AU
WBB/ALK
