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Stevev wrote:Nice crowd. About 3,500. That will help the average attendence figure.I thought that the crowd was at least 4,000 people. I will stick to that. I think whoever was counting the attendance was off.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
February 19, 2006
It was hard to tell who was more excited Saturday night.
Was it Rachel Hammond? After taking a second-half charge from High Point's Caitlin Thys, Hammond sprung from the floor like a kid who had just downed a cup of straight sugar, bumping chests with teammate Roli-Ann Nikagbatse.
Or was it the Vines Center crowd? It went bonkers when Liberty chancellor Jerry Falwell starting banging away at a cowbell during a media timeout.
Cue the chant: Needs more cowbell, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap!
Deference here goes to Hammond, whose play was a key part of a game-defining 9-0 run. Liberty regained control of the Big South race with a 62-53 win and snapped a two-game losing streak to the Panthers, and once again, defense and energy were keys for the Flames.
"We've been so focused on our energy points and taking charges and things like that," Hammond said. "That's why I was so excited. I finally had a little success on the defensive end, and it was a critical time of the game to do it."
Liberty (18-5, 9-1 Big South) will win the regular-season conference title provided it wins its remaining four games. High Point (17-6, 8-2) needs Liberty to slip at least once for a chance to forge a tie. If the teams end the season tied, a coin flip will determine who hosts the conference tournament semifinals and finals.
"The funny thing about the league this year is that I really believe there are seven teams who can get on a roll and win it," High Point coach Tooey Loy said. "It's not the league of the past nine years where Liberty is just head and shoulders above everyone else. They can get knocked off just as easily as we could, or any other school in the conference."
Liberty's win was a mix of an attacking mentality on offense and a lockdown psyche on defense. The Flames, who own the third best field-goal percentage defense in the country, held the Panthers to 33.3 shooting. Offensively, Liberty pounded the ball at the basket and willed itself to the free throw line.
LU coach Carey Green wanted the Flames to make more free throws than High Point attempted.
So Liberty hit more than six times as many free throws as the Panthers attempted. LU was 26-for-38 at the stripe; High Point went 1-for-4.
That was partly by design. High Point had no one to counter Liberty's superior size on the front line, so Loy said his team needed to hammer Liberty from the outside. That didn't happen. The Panthers hit just 4 of 19 3-pointers and missed long-range specialist Leslie Cook badly. Cook torched the Flames for 17 points in the first meeting in North Carolina last month, but she missed her fourth straight game with a thigh contusion.
"That was the difference between tonight and High Point," Loy said. "That night she scores 17 and hits five 3s and gets them out of that zone a little bit. Tonight, we didn't make them."
The Flames held Big South preseason player of the year Katie O'Dell to nine points on 4 of 14 shooting, and as High Point attempted to rally in the final five minutes, O'Dell was hardly near the ball. O'Dell scored her last basket with 17:13 left.
Nikagbatse and Courtney Watkins got much of the credit for the defensive job on High Point's top scorer.
"Roli had tremendous heart to shut her down," Green said.
Moriah Frazee put up stats reminiscent of her sister Megan, who had surgery on her injured knee Friday. Moriah scored 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds and got to the stripe often, using her height to bully her way to the cylinder. High Point's only answer was to hack away.
"Moriah has a nasty post mentality," Hammond said. "She is a strong player. When you want something to get done, Moriah is just an emotional and fierce player. I'm glad she's on my team."
Allyson Fasnacht added 15 points for Liberty, and Karolina Piotrkiewicz grabbed 10 rebounds. Raven Truslow scored 15 to lead High Point.
Thys scored on a baseline drive with 10:53 left to tie the game at 42, but the Panthers didn't score again for more than seven minutes as Liberty slowly built a nine-point lead.
The free-throw parade continued and the crowd roared in appreciation. When the Panthers upset the Flames here last year, less than 400 fans attended. Spurred by a rush of people on campus for Liberty's Campus for a Weekend, Saturday night's attendance of 3,366 was the seventh largest in school history and the biggest since Virginia Tech visited Vines in 2002.
Liberty's players took notice and gained some extra incentive for bringing the Big South tourney back to Lynchburg.
"That's the main thing," Moriah Frazee said. "You can feel the support. You just have to look up into the stands and see all the people there. That was really neat."
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
February 18, 2006 · Lynchburg, Va.
The Lady Flames held the Panthers scoreless over a seven-minute period late in the second half to take control of a tightly-contested battle en route to a 62-53 win in a game that featured the top two teams in the league, Saturday evening, in the Vines Center.
With the victory, the Lady Flames claim sole possession of first place with a 9-1 Big South record (18-5 overall), while the loss drops High Point back into second place with an 8-2 record (17-6 overall). The game was played in front of 3,366 fans, marking the seventh-largest crowd in school history.
The Lady Flames jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead as Allyson Fasnacht (So., G, Salem, Va.) knocked down a three-pointer just 47 seconds into the game, while Moriah Frazee (Fr., G, Xenia, Ohio) took a feed from Fasnacht for a jumper to push the lead to six points, 10-4, just a minute later.
Liberty continued to control the game over the next eight minutes as Moriah Frazee hit a trey from the top of the key to give Liberty an eight-point lead, 19-11, at the 10:28 mark. But High Point started to get its offense going as the Panthers scored eight of the next 10 points to pull within two points, 21-19, on a three-pointer by Candyce Sellars.
High Point continued to roll with a 5-1 run, taking a three-point lead, 25-22, on a tip-in by Amber Manuel at the 4:11 mark. However, Liberty responded with six-straight points to take a three-point lead on a lay-up by Karolina Piotrkiewicz with 2:38 left before the break.
A lay-up by Raven Truslow allowed High Point to regain the lead at the 1:25 mark and the Panthers looked like they were going to hold the lead going into the locker at halftime, but Fasnacht was able to find Moriah Frazee open under the basket on an in-bounds play with four seconds left to give Liberty a two-point lead at the break, 31-29, on an old fashion three-point play.
Liberty continued to extend its lead over the opening minutes of the second half as a jumper by Jamie Feagin pushed Liberty’s lead to seven points, 42-35, at the 15:09 mark. High Point closed the gap by scoring seven-straight points, tying the game on a lay-up by Caitlin Thys with 10:54 mark.
However, that would be the last time that the Panthers would find the scoring column over the next seven minutes of play as a pair of free throws by Fasnacht gave Liberty a nine-point lead, 51-42, at the 4:21 mark to cap the 9-0 run.
Truslow was able to knock down a three-pointer 50 seconds later to get High Point within six points, but that would be as close as the Panthers were get down the stretch as Liberty converted on 9-of-12 attempts from the charity stripe to seal the victory.
The free throw line proved to be a telling stat on the evening as Liberty finished the game 26-of-38 from the charity stripe, while High Point was just 1-of-4 on the evening. Both teams struggled on the night from the field as Liberty shot just 31.5 percent from the field, while the Lady Flames held their 11th-straight opponent below 40 percent from the field as High Point shot just 33.3 percent from the floor.
Besides garnering the top spot in the league with the win, the Lady Flames’ victory gave head coach Carey Green his 159th career victory, making him the winningest coach in Big South Conference history as he surpassed Radford’s Luby Lichonczak who finished his career with 158 wins in 11 seasons.
Moriah Frazee led the Lady Flames with 19 points, which was aided by an 8-of-11 performance from the free throw line, while Fasnacht followed with 15 points. Piotrkiewicz nearly missed a double-double as he pulled down a team-high 10 rebounds, while adding nine points.
Raven came off the bench to pace the Panthers with 15 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field, while grabbing seven rebounds. Liberty held High Point’s leading scorer Katie O’Dell well below her season average as the senior finished with nine points and added eight rebounds.
The Lady Flames begin a two-game road swing on Wednesday when they travel to Winthrop to face the Eagles for a 7 p.m. game, while High Point travels to Radford on the same day for a 7 p.m. contest in the Dedmon Center.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
dennis carter and ray jones did a pretty good jobummm............... I don't think so.
bigsmooth wrote:i caught the webcast, the ladies played well, and certainly fueled by the nice crowd! if we can just maintain and take care of business, another trip to the dance is in sight!It was a nice crowd. Hopefully we will handle our business and get back to the NCAA's
Game Note: Sophomore guard Raven Truslow has informed the HPU coaching staff that she has decided to transfer for the 2006-2007 season. She has been dismissed from the team. Truslow averaged 7.6 points per game this season and 3.8 rebounds. She was a member of the Big South All-Freshman Team last season.http://www.highpointpanthers.com/headli ... l&id=31162
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