Box Score
Following two losses to conference foe Trevecca Nazarenee University during the regular season, the Kentucky Wesleyan College women's basketball team refused to falter for a third time, when the stakes were at their highest.
The Panthers overcame a nine-point halftime deficit to beat the defending conference champion Trojans, 80-76, on Saturday at Trojan Fieldhouse in Nashville, and win the G-MAC Tournament championship, the first-ever in women's program history.
"We wanted things to turn out well for this group," said co-KWC coach Caleb Nieman. "They did things the right way. We had a good sense of team chemistry all year."
Karly Rhoads led the Panthers (21-8) with 23 points and five assists.
T'Essence Phelps finished with 12 points and seven rebounds, while
Jade Mills-Harris and
Kourtney Rhoads added 11 and 10, respectively.
Anna Mitchell finished with a game-high 24 point for the Trojans (19-9), but it wasn't enough to hold off KWC's second-half rally.
TNU took a 47-36 lead with 15:22 left in the game on a three-pointer by Christina Curtner, who finished with 17 points and 11 boards, but the Panthers responded with a 13-2 run to even things up just four minutes later.
Erin Dorn's layup with 9:29 left gave KWC a 57-55 lead, and TNU got no closer than two points the rest of the way.
"All year we needed to become a tougher team," said Nieman. "Going into the conference tournament, it was going to be three games in three days, and the best team may not win, but the tougher team will. We got to find out what it was like to be a tough team, and we did it at the end of the year."
