Women cagers fall to Southwest in MVC

For the second straight game, the Lady Braves gave Southwest Missouri State more than they bargained for. But for the second straight game, the Lady Braves came up just short, this time falling to SMSU 68-56 in the first round of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

In fact, Bradley held the lead for the latter part of the first half. Guard Michelle Nason drained a trey at 9:06 to give the Lady Braves a 13-12 lead and nailed another just a half a minute later.

A Courtney Murdock free throw was answered with two Carolyn Hagerty free throws and a Liza Reed layup, which gave the Lady Braves their biggest lead of the game at 20-13.

After a SMSU score, Hagerty hit a short jumper in the lane to boost the lead back up to seven. The Lady Bears managed to claw back, and Stephanie Thurman's three at the 2:09 mark gave SMSU its first lead in seven minutes.

Another Nason three-pointer with 53 seconds left gave the lead back to Bradley, but a Thurman trey with 35 seconds remaining sent SMSU into the locker room with a 29-28 halftime lead.

Guard Dawn Cartwright drilled a three to open second-half scoring and the Lady Braves jumped ahead by two. SMSU had a 63-game winning streak on the line and when forward Carrie Coffman dumped one in from the right block to stretch the margin to four, the Hammons Center crowd grew restless.

But that was the last lead the Lady Braves would have.

Two Lisa Davies layups quickly erased the Bradley advantage and a Julie Howard jumper at 15:57 gave SMSU the lead for good, 35-33.

Every BU basket in the second half seemed to be answered by a Lady Bear basket. Hagerty swished two free throws, LaTanya Davis banked one in from the right block. Nason tossed in a 10-footer, Charitee Longstreth layed one in. Nason drilled a trey, Davis came up with a steal and scored.

The Lady Braves fought to within 53-51 with 5:18 remaining after a Nason three, but a Longstreth putback and a Kindra Garst trey put the game away.

Bradley would get no closer than six the rest of the way.

"We played right with them, but down the stretch they had some big buckets," Nason said. "If we had another five minutes, maybe we could have pulled it out."

Nason was a workhorse for the Lady Braves, running with no breaks as she played all 40 minutes of the game.

Field goal shooting was the difference, as SMSU shot 52 percent compared to 33 percent for Bradley. Both teams shot relatively the same in the first half, but SMSU caught fire in the second half, hitting 15 of 21 shots (71 percent), while Bradley made just nine of 30 attempts (30 percent).

The Lady Braves finished the 1994-95 season with a 13-14 overall record, which Nason called "disappointing."

"We were better than our record," she said. "It was a good year, a fun year, but kind of disappointing. We started off so great with wins against Eastern Michigan and Northern Iowa, but the season went downhill from there."

The reason? "It was the same old story," Nason said. "Injuries and inconsistency."