CHARLOTTE, NC (Bojangles Coliseum) – Lincoln University women's basketball team started out flat in their opening game of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association tournament as Shaw University used a combination of hot shooting and smothering defense to jump out to a double-figure lead over the lower seeded Lincoln squad before the Lions rallied to earn a 65-62 win Tuesday afternoon.
Lincoln improves to 8-19 overall while Shaw concludes their season at 11-18. The Lions will faced the top seeded in the Northern Division Chowan University tomorrow at 12:10 p.m.
For the game, Lincoln was led by
She'cquan Bailey (Denton, Md/Baltimore City CC), who scored a game-high 19 points, eight rebounds and four steals.
De'jah Taylor (Nanuet, NY/Paramus Catholic Regional) finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and five blocks, while
Ashley Paynes-Hightower (Peoria, Ill./Harford Community College) finished with 12 points and six rebounds.
For Shaw University, the Bears were led by LaQuisha Taylor who scored 17 points, had nine rebounds and three steals. Bianca Maxwell added 16 points and a game-high 13 rebounds, and Imani Heggins chipped in 11 points and had five rebounds.
It was all Shaw Bears in the first quarter, as SU jumped out to an28-8 first quarter lead, the largest Shaw lead of the first half.
The second quarter, was just the opposite, as Lincoln closed the gap with a 21-8 quarter of their own., closing the gap to seven at 36-29
In the third quarter, Shaw came out of halftime in control of the game, and looked to put it away, but the Lions came out of the locker room inspired and played hard in the quarter. The Bears maintained their lead throughout the first minutes of the quarter, but Lincoln rallied behind the inside scoring of Taylor and the outside shooting of Bailey and
Kholby Oliver (Bowie, Md./Tallahassee Community College) to cut the Shaw lead to just one point at the 5:43 mark of the third quarter. The scoring would go back and forth between the two teams, but Shaw's Heggins would find an opening with a jumper at the buzzer to give Shaw a 48-47 advantage heading into the final quarter.
The fourth quarter began with Shaw holding a one point lead, and the Lions would use a 13-6 run to jump out to a 62-54 lead with 4:45 remaining, courtesy of consecutive buckets by Paynes-Hightower. The Bears would scratch and claw their way back into the game, and eventually got the deficit down to just 2 points, 64-62 with 1:06 remaining in the game. A couple of missed free throws by Lincoln gave the Bears life but they were unable to convert. Lincoln failed to score on their end as well giving Shaw another chance with 7.4 seconds left. The Bears would get a jumper from Raquel Kellow, but it went off wide as Bailey got the rebound and would be fouled with .3 left on the clock. Bailey then sealed the game, going one of two from the free throw line to give fifth seeded Lions the upset win over #4 Shaw, 65-62.
Statistically it was a tale of two halves as the Lions shot just 30.6% (11-36) in the first half and 53.5% (15-28) in the second to finish the game with a 40.6% effort. Shaw finished the game shooting 34.3% (23-67) from the field. Lincoln outrebounded the Bears 44-41 and outscored Shaw in the paint 32-28.
