AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Down 14-3 early, Macomb Women's Basketball battled all the way back and had a shot to win it at the buzzer in a narrow 43-42 road setback at Oakland Community College Thursday (March 2) to close out regular season action.
The loss gives the Monarchs the East No. 5 seed in next week's Great Lakes District C Tournament. The fifth-seeded Monarchs will visit No. 2 seed St. Clair County Community College Tuesday (March 7). Tip-off time has not been announced at the time of this release. The winner of Tuesday's first round game will move on to Mott Community College for the semifinals on Thursday (March 9) at 11:30 a.m. The championship game, also at Mott, will be played March 11 at 12 p.m.
After scoring first and leading 3-0, the Monarchs were only able to get two more shots to fall the rest of the first quarter as the host Raiders used a 14-0 run to earn a 15-8 lead through 10 minutes of play. The big first quarter led the Raiders to a 27-17 halftime lead.
The Monarchs scored the first nine points of the second half to get to within one, 27-26, before the Raiders answered with a 9-0 run of their own to extend the lead back to 10. Not backing down, the Monarchs battled all the way back one more time and had chances to take the lead at the free throw line late and at the buzzer before falling by one in the hard-fought contest.
The Raiders turned a 20-3 advantage in offensive rebounds into a 12-2 edge in second chance points to make up the difference in Thursday's regular season finale.
Amy Jackson (Flat Rock, Mich./Flat Rock) dropped in 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from 3-point land and added a team-high four steals, while
Rayonna Armstrong (Toledo, Ohio/Notre Dame Academy) and
Valina Hudgins (Warren, Mich./Lincoln) followed Jackson with nine points each. Hudgins grabbed a team-high six rebounds and
Tamia Tounsel (Shelby Twp., Mich./Dakota) checked in with five boards and three blocks in the narrow defeat.
Stay tuned for a playoff edition of game notes coming Monday afternoon highlighting the Monarchs first round matchup against the Skippers.
