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The battle cry came before a single minute melted off the game clock Thursday night.
“Before the game I told them you only get so many moments like this in your career,” Mike Basler, the University of Saint Mary women’s head basketball coach said. “With the next 40 minutes, you have a chance to make this moment into the moment that you want it to be.”
And with that the Lady Spires took its home floor at Ryan Sports Center to open its conference schedule against no. 24 nationally ranked Sterling College. The game represented the season’s rebirth, a chance for Saint Mary to right a 4-4 season.
The moment was there for the Lady Spires, and the team took full advantage.
Like a prize fight, the two Kansas Athletic Collegiate Conference foes traded blow after blow until USM delivered a round of clutch shots late in the second half. The heavy doze of big hits propelled Saint Mary to a massive 72-69 upset win.
“It was so exciting because Sterling is one of our toughest competitors in conference,” forward Korbynn Stallbaumer said, “and to come out and get a win like this, it was exhilarating.”
To start the game, the Lady Spires grabbed a quick 4-2 lead thanks to a couple of impressive jump shots by Shelby Watson.
Sterling then claimed its first lead a minute later, which it held on to until the 11:06 mark, where Jordan VanNess splashed into two free throws giving USM a 17-16 advantage.
“I looked at coach Ciani and asked, are we playing too fast? Can we hang with them?,” Basler said. “But our kids wanted that. They wanted to go toe-to-toe with them and wanted to find out how they stacked up.”
The home squad pushed the lead to three, its biggest of the night, before the Lady Warriors retook the advantage minutes later. However, a 6-0 run by the Lady Spires brought the squad within two points and a 3-pointer by Stallbaumer at 2:46 put USM ahead 32-31.
After a flurry of Sterling baskets, Kendra Mattox hit a wide open lay up right before half time to settle the score at 38-34.
“Throughout the entire game I was just thinking we have to keep scoring and scoring,” forward Jasmine Johnson said. “Like coach said we had to punch back and answer, and we did that.”
In the first minute of the second half, Sterling went on a 6-0 run to capture its largest lead of the contest, 44-34. Yet a strong rally by USM, headlined by a deep 3-pointer from Mattox, brought the game back to a one-point affair 46-45 at 13:40.
The battle cry came before a single minute melted off the game clock Thursday night.
“Before the game I told them you only get so many moments like this in your career,” Mike Basler, the University of Saint Mary women’s head basketball coach said. “With the next 40 minutes, you have a chance to make this moment into the moment that you want it to be.”
And with that the Lady Spires took its home floor at Ryan Sports Center to open its conference schedule against no. 24 nationally ranked Sterling College. The game represented the season’s rebirth, a chance for Saint Mary to right a 4-4 season.
The moment was there for the Lady Spires, and the team took full advantage.
Like a prize fight, the two Kansas Athletic Collegiate Conference foes traded blow after blow until USM delivered a round of clutch shots late in the second half. The heavy doze of big hits propelled Saint Mary to a massive 72-69 upset win.
“It was so exciting because Sterling is one of our toughest competitors in conference,” forward Korbynn Stallbaumer said, “and to come out and get a win like this, it was exhilarating.”
To start the game, the Lady Spires grabbed a quick 4-2 lead thanks to a couple of impressive jump shots by Shelby Watson.
Sterling then claimed its first lead a minute later, which it held on to until the 11:06 mark, where Jordan VanNess splashed into two free throws giving USM a 17-16 advantage.
“I looked at coach Ciani and asked, are we playing too fast? Can we hang with them?,” Basler said. “But our kids wanted that. They wanted to go toe-to-toe with them and wanted to find out how they stacked up.”
The home squad pushed the lead to three, its biggest of the night, before the Lady Warriors retook the advantage minutes later. However, a 6-0 run by the Lady Spires brought the squad within two points and a 3-pointer by Stallbaumer at 2:46 put USM ahead 32-31.
After a flurry of Sterling baskets, Kendra Mattox hit a wide open lay up right before half time to settle the score at 38-34.
“Throughout the entire game I was just thinking we have to keep scoring and scoring,” forward Jasmine Johnson said. “Like coach said we had to punch back and answer, and we did that.”
In the first minute of the second half, Sterling went on a 6-0 run to capture its largest lead of the contest, 44-34. Yet a strong rally by USM, headlined by a deep 3-pointer from Mattox, brought the game back to a one-point affair 46-45 at 13:40.
The comeback climaxed minutes later when Mattox hit another big shot, this time for two that put the score at 49-48 USM, its first lead since late in the first half.
“I wasn’t going to back our kids up,” the Saint Mary coach said. “It’s like a fighter in that you train all the time and you just want to get in there and mix it up. I let them go and I thought we out played them.”
From there, the Lady Spires slowly pulled away. USM surpassed its largest lead thanks to six straight points from Stallbaumer, pushing ahead 59-51 with seven minutes left in regulation. Back came the Lady Warriors though, and at 2:11 the visitors cut the deficit to 63-60.
Yet another big Spire shot, this time from the fingertips of Watson, put the home team up 65-60. Several nervous free throws later, Saint Mary was able to enjoy the 72-69 upset victory.
“It’s real big,” Watson said. “We wanted this for our seniors and to get it, we are just really happy. It was a big win over a ranked conference opponent, what else can you say.”
The Lady Spires finished shooting 43 percent from the field as a team, 42 percent from behind the arc, and dished out 10 assists. Watson finished with a team high 16 points, Mattox had 13, Stallbaumer 14 and Johnson 13.
Adelyn Ezeh lead the team in rebounds with 11 and Annie Rowan kicked out four assists.
Saint Mary, 5-4 overall and 1-0 in the KCAC, hosts Friends on Saturday. Tip off is set for 5 p.m.
“Anytime we got punched in the mouth we answered,” Basler said. “I kept telling them twenty, ten, five minutes until your moment, make it what you want it to be.”
“They did.”
