MSU Women Beat #1 Seed to Advance to Tourney Title Game
3/12/2010 10:39:03 PM | Women's Basketball
MSU v EWU box score
Montana State(18-13) made history in the Big Sky Conference beating number one seed Eastern Washington 65-57 in the semi final game of the conference tourney at Cheney Friday night.
Along with Portland State, who beat Montana in the first semi-final of the day, they will be the first “six seed versus five seed” conference title game in the history of the Big Sky Conference.
The Bobcats will face the Vikings at 2:00 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday. The game will mark the third game in as many days for both teams who have yet to wear their white jerseys in the tourney. PSU, being the higher seed, will wear the white tomorrow. The game will be broadcast on Altitude TV.
“For us physically this was probably the hardest game to this point,” head coach Tricia Binford said. “There is a reason why they had the number one seed in the tournament. It took everything we had in that second half to grit it out. I felt like in the second half Erica (Perry) catapulted us on and got the transition going.”
Perry led the Cats with 22 points, 15 of those coming in the second half. Sarah Strand scored 17 including four straight points down the stretch that gave MSU a seven-point lead with 1:28 left in the game. This will be the second Big Sky Conference championship game that Perry has played in as a Bobcat.
“This was a great team effort,” Perry said. “When Sarah made those two shots, that really carried over to our defense and we could feel the momentum.”
The game had 13 lead changes in the second half and MSU finally took their largest lead of the game, eight points, with 36 seconds left in the contest. Janette Jackson scored the last MSU bucket of the game and had nine points for the game. Katie Bussey added 10 points. Jackson led MSU in rebounds with 9.
EWU had a one point lead at the half, 26-25. With 5:19 left in the game, EWU's Chene Cooper hit a three-point shot for EWU that put them up 51-49. Perry had a steal and breakaway lay-up at 3:13 that gave the Cats a five-point lead, 56-51.
MSU out-rebounded the Eagles 65-57. Julie Piper, who was voted the Big Sky Most Valuable Player of the Year sat most of the first half with two quick fouls and ended up with only eight points in the game.
