ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - Shenandoah University won its first
in-season women's basketball tournament in three years Saturday
afternoon with a 61-56 victory over host Elizabethtown in the R1
Sports Blue Jay Classic championship game.
For Shenandoah (5-4), the win also avenges a championship game
loss to Elizabethtown (2-7) in last season's F&M Tournament
championship.
Senior Alexis
Hargbol, who became the 15th member of the SU
women's basketball 1000-point club in yesterday's victory over
Wilkes, led the Hornets to the championship today with 18 points
and 13 rebounds. Hargbol had 39 points and 23 rebounds in the
tournament to earn MVP honors.
She was joined on the All-Tournament team by classmate Katherine Flint,
who had 15 points and 8 assists in the championship game victory.
In the final minute, with the Blue Jays making a last-ditch
effort at victory, Flint canned all four of her free throw attempts
to help clinch the championship. As a team, SU was 8 for 10 from
the free throw line in the final 66 seconds.
With the lead trading back-and-forth 12 times in the first half,
Shenandoah took a 26-25 lead into the half when freshman Nicole
Gilbertson hit a pair of free throws at the 1:02 mark.
The Hornets then opened the second half on an 8-0 run to seize
total control of the contest. The lead bulged to as many as nine
points on two occasions before Elizabethtown was able to put
together a 7-0 run of its own to trail by just one, 42-41, with
11:14 remaining.
The two teams remained within four points of one another for the
next seven minutes until Hargbol gave SU some much needed breathing
room by making a pair of free throws at the 4:21 mark.
Shenandoah then by at least three points the rest of the way and
had an eight-point advantage with 28 seconds left.
The Blue Jays closed out the scoring by making a three-pointer
at the buzzer.
Saturday's championship is the first for the team since SU won
both the Lebanon Valley Tournament and its own shootout in the
2006-07 season. In each of Michelle Guyant-Holloway's four years at
the helm of the program, she has led her team into an in-season
tournament championship contest.
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