Ball State University Athletics
Women Fall Short in Rally at Wright State
December 17, 2005 | Women's Basketball
Ball State erased a nine-point deficit in a 70 second span, but a long bomb by Wright State's Sierra Crayton as time expired gave her team a 77-74 victory over the Cardinals Saturday in Dayton, Ohio.
BSU seemed out of sorts for most of the contest. Outside of a pair of ties, the Cardinals found themselves behind the eight-ball for the first 29 minutes of the game. Brittney Whiteside put the Raiders on the board first with her layup 20 seconds into the game. After trading baskets for the next few minutes, the Raiders utilized a 7-0 run to go up 15-6 at the 15:31 mark. BSU knotted the score at 21-21 on Kelsey Corbin's layup with 8:21 remaining in the first stanza. Wright State responded with an 11-1 run to build its first double-digit lead of 32-22 with 5:01 left. Thanks to a pair of free tosses by Krista Stewart and a long 3-pointer by Kiley Jarrett as time expired, the Cardinals trimmed their deficit to just four points -- 37-33 -- at halftime.
The second half began much the same way. Wright State built back a double-digit lead when Whitney Lewis made good on an old-fashioned 3-point play less than two minutes into the period. Ball State got back within three points thanks to a pair of free throws and then a 3-pointer by Stewart. After swapping buckets, the Cardinals scored six unanswered points on two baskets by Corbin sandwiched around a jumper by Erica Cotton to knot the score at 50-50 with 11:28 on the clock. One minute later, Julie DeMuth hit back-to-back free throws to give Ball State its first lead of the game at 53-52. Stewart's layup at the 9:46 mark gave BSU its largest lead of the game -- 55-52 -- with 9:46 left. The teams traded leads twice more, before the Raiders reeled off 11 unanswered points to go up 71-62 with 2:15 left setting up the Cardinals' final comeback attempt.
Raechelle Hampton began the rally with her short jumper at the 1:10 mark. After Steph Comisar hit the second of two free throws, Stewart hit a long 3-pointer from the base line to put BSU within five points at 72-67 with 38 seconds left. After a free throw by WSU's Rhea Mays, Stewart knocked down another jumper. A steal and a pass from Kiley Jarrett set up a 3-pointer by Tina Bolte to slice BSU's deficit to one point at 73-72 with 16 seconds left. After another free throw from Mays, Jarrett found Corbin for a layup to knot the score at 74-74 with six seconds remaining. The Cardinals' hopes were dashed when Sierra Clayton hit a 30-foot desperation shot as time expired to give Wright State the final margin of victory.
"We just didn't come prepared to play today," BSU head coach Tracy Roller said. "Credit Wright State. They took us out of our game. We didn't give ourselves a chance to win it. We should never have been in the position we were down the stretch."
Stewart led all scorers with a career-high 21 points off the bench. She added seven rebounds. Hampton notched double digits for the second-straight game with 14 points. Corbin added 13 plus pulled down a game-high eight rebounds. Kiley Jarrett came off the bench to dish off a game-high 10 assists, marking the second double-digit assist total of her career. She added eight points. The Cardinals outshot Wright State from the floor, hitting 26-of-56 (46.4 percent) for the game compared to 42.4 (25-of-59) for the Raiders. BSU also had a 42-35 advantage on the boards, but had 19 turnovers to WSU's 15.
BSU, which drops to 6-2, plays its third-straight road contest Monday when it travels to #2/2 Duke for a 7 p.m. date.
