NORFOLK, Virginia – It wasn’t the ending head coach LeDawn Gibson envisioned for the Lady Rattlers. A
quarterfinal defeat 84-75 at the hands of the Lady Tigers of Savannah State
eliminated FAMU from contention in the 2014 MEAC basketball championship at the
Scope Arena.Taneka Rubin led the Lady Rattlers, grinding out 19 points, with all of her shots made from the field being three-pointers, while making 4-of-4 from the free throw line.
Jasmine Grice, the MEAC Player of the Year, was ineffective from the field, scoring well below her season average with 14 points. Struggling with a shoulder injury, she went down hard after a ball in the first half and didn’t appear to recover until midway through the second half.
FAMU shot 36.4 percent from the field in the first half and 40.5 in the second half. They gave up 20 turnovers, but more importantly 54 points in the paint.
“I think it was a disappointing end to our season. Our team didn’t show up to play today in the first half, but I am still proud of some of the accomplishments we made this season. Now we’ve got to go back and get ready for next season,” Gibson said.
Senior Andreya Lacy, had another solid game. She scored nine points and spraked the Lady Rattler comeback with her energy on defense as well as offense. Alicia McCray also played valuable minutes, pulling down four rebounds in the game.
The Lady Rattlers dug a hole for themselves, trailing by 10 points at 37-27 at the half. In the second half, SSU made a run to go up by 20 with 15:13 remaining in the game. The hole would be too much for FAMU to overcome, as they made a run, but it was too steep to climb out of.
SSU was led by jasmine Norman, who scored 22 points on 10-of-17 shooting. Bria Dorsey scored 17, Ezinne Kalu carded 15 and Jasmine Kirkland chipped in 12 points to round out the quartet in double figures.
“We stressed that we needed to stop the penetration. It wasn’t necessarily the nig girls who were scoring in the paint, but the back end of our press was not stopping the penetration to keep them from getting to the basket. We didn’t play like we wanted to win tonight. Monday night we played like we wanted to be here, but tonight they played like they were ready for the season to be over. We didn’t play FAMU basketball,” Gibson added.
Grice felt that it was a missed opportunity for the Lady Rattlers. “We didn’t come out like we were ready to play. We waited until the second half and we just couldn’t come back. I told my teammates whoa re coming back next year to keep their head’s up. They’ve got another season to get it done. It’s not over. You have another chance, so keep your head up and stay focused and humble,” she said.
It was an improvement over last season’s first round exit, but not nearly the goal the team had in mind.
Rubin feels the team should be prepared to take the next step next season. “I think we’ll be strong next year. Coach has a lot of good recruits coming in, so we should be good,” she said.
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