PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas -- It was the true freshman Dominique Newman who took control of the game in the second half, but it was senior Jeronia Allen who knocked down the buzzer-beater to lift the Prairie View A&M women's basketball team to a thrilling 66-64 victory over Bethune-Cookman Saturday afternoon.The Lady Panthers (2-1) rallied from a 22-point third-quarter deficit to defeat the Lady Wildcats (1-3).
"My team really fought today," PVAMU head women's basketball coach Ravon Justice said. "We knew coming into this game it was going to be a challenge. I know that we aren't the type of team that's going to lay down and quit and we fought through every possession and tonight we had a lot of fight in us."
Coming off the bench, Newman took center stage when the game was on the line. She finished with 18 points, three rebounds, two assists, and one steal before fouling out of the game. During a critical stretch Newman stayed consisted scoring all 18 of her points in the second half, going 6-for-6 from three-point range.
"That is what Dom (Dominique) does," Justice said. "She knocks down shots when we need her to. She does that a lot in practice. We do drills to stop the shot, but she's always the person that makes it. I know for everybody else it's exciting to see her, but we expect moments like that from our freshman."
Allen scored 14 points, had seven rebounds, two assists, and one steal, including 6-of-8 at the free throw line.
The Lady Panthers could never establish a rhythm over the first two quarters, as they trailed 33-15 at halftime.
"At halftime, they kind of got away from us (Bethune-Cookman)," said Justice. "We got away from doing what we do and during the halftime we talked about the fact that we need to get back to doing things that we do well. We need to create shots for teammates and made adjustments."
After falling behind by 22 early in the second half, PVAMU put together an 18-8 run to get back in them game, outscoring the Wildcats 20-16 in that quarter.
The Lady Panthers pulled to within three at the 1:11 mark (64-61) a steal by La'Sha Haynes caused Bethune-Cookman to foul placing Allen on the charity stripe line. She hit both free throws knotting the score at 64 with 36 seconds remaining.
A Cookman player missed layup allowed Alexus Parker of the Lady Panthers to pull down her seventh rebound, taking PV to the other end of the court. Coach Justice called a timeout with four seconds remaining.
On a Haynes in bound pass to Tori Cater, Carter handed the ball off to Allen who was able to get the ball out of her hands right before the buzzer went off.
"When the shot was coming off my hands I knew I wanted to win and so I took the shot," said Allen. "I felt like the shot was going in."
In addition to Newman and Allen, PV got several other winning performances. Mariah Campbell finished with a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) and one block shot. Parker scored 10 points, had two assists and one steal. Carter had eight points, four rebounds, five assists, one block shot and one steal to add to the success of the win for Prairie View A&M.
PVAMU will head to Dallas to take on SMU for a 5:30 tip on Tuesday.
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