Tech women knock off Jacksonville State in OVC tourney opener
March 4, 2021

Tech women knock off Jacksonville State in OVC tourney opener

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Last season’s Ohio Valley Conference Basketball Championships haunted the Tennessee Tech women. Trying to overcome a grief-filled moment and coming up short with Southeast Missouri hitting a buzzer-beater in overtime held heavy in their hearts and minds. Hardly a week later, everything changed with the COVID-19 pandemic. So with a full year of all of this weighing on the Golden Eagles, Thursday, they had enough. Tech opened up the quarterfinal contest in the 2021 OVC Basketball Championships like a team possessed and hardly looked back as the fifth-seeded Golden Eagles took a 79-64 victory over No. 4-seed Jacksonville State, heralding its exit from the OVC in women’s basketball.

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By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Last season's Ohio Valley Conference Basketball Championships haunted the Tennessee Tech women. Trying to overcome a grief-filled moment and coming up short with Southeast Missouri hitting a buzzer-beater in overtime held heavy in their hearts and minds. Hardly a week later, everything changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.

So with a full year of all of this weighing on the Golden Eagles, Thursday, they had enough.

Tech opened up the quarterfinal contest in the 2021 OVC Basketball Championships like a team possessed and hardly looked back as the fifth-seeded Golden Eagles took a 79-64 victory over No. 4-seed Jacksonville State, heralding its exit from the OVC in women's basketball.

"We came in and we just took care of business," said senior guard Jordan Brock. "Our emphasis was to come in and play our game quarter by quarter."

Head coach Kim Rosamond knew it wasn't going to be an easy battle going in, but was thrilled with the result.

"I couldn't be any prouder of our kids," she said. "Year in and year out, Jacksonville State is one of the best defensive teams in our league. To be able to drop 79 points on them is huge. That first quarter was so important to jump out on them and gain a lot of confidence. We had a solid game plan going in, but game plans only work if your players execute them. Our players executed it in the first quarter to near-perfection."

The Golden Eagles will take on UT Martin on Friday in the tournament semifinals. Tech defeated the Skyhawks on the road in the only meeting this season, winning 77-73. Dylan Vazzano will handle the broadcast on 106.1 The Eagle, while Bob Belvin and Helen Williams will take on the duties on ESPN+ (subscription required).

Tech had four players score in double-digits, led by Brock, who scored 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Mackenzie Coleman added 19, while Kesha Brady had 12 and Anna Jones 10. Jada Guinn, the remaining component of the starting five, was one point shy of a double-double, leading both teams with 11 rebounds to go along with nine points.

"We hadn't had all of our players clicking on all cylinders together this season on the same day," Rosamond said. "Today we did. Jada makes another free throw or a layup and she'd be in double figures. All of them played really well. We're playing with a shorter bench, but Maaliya Owens and Megan Clark both played some big minutes. This was just a really good win today for these kids."

Jacksonville State's Yamia Johnson led all scorers with 25 points, including eight of the Gamecocks' 21 points in the third quarter. Keiara Griffin and Taylor Hawks both scored 11.

To put it kindly, the Golden Eagles were on fire in the first quarter, while Jacksonville State wasn't. Tech knocked down nine of its 14 shots, while the only thing Jacksonville State had in nearly the first seven minutes of the game was free throws. The Gamecocks hit their first field goal of the contest at the 3:13 mark, but trailed 16-7 by that point with five of six free throws made to that point.

But Tech wasn't letting up in the quarter as the Golden Eagles outscored JSU 23-9 in the first 10 minutes, then used a 9-0 run in the second quarter to take a 21-point lead at the seven-minute mark.

The Gamecocks were able to slice one point off of Tech's first-quarter advantage, outscoring the Golden Eagles 22-21 in the second, but the momentum slowly started to shift in the third. After shooting 62.1 percent in the first half, Tech cooled off a bit in the third quarter as the Gamecocks warmed up. The Golden Eagles hit six of their 16 tries and was 1-for-6 from long-range.

JSU, however, started to heat up. Including Johnson's eight points, the Gamecocks were 8-for-15 from the field, cutting Tech's 21-point lead at its peak down to six points with 2:20 left in the quarter as Johnson hit two big 3-pointers and Imari Martin adding another.

"Everyone's going to make runs," Brock said, "but we handled theirs well."

Rosamond added, "(JSU head coach Rick Pietri) is a great coach and they made a lot of adjustments. We played a lot of make-miss. Our first two games against them, we didn't play a lot of zone and we're not a team that plays a lot of zone. We thought that was the best way to guard them. They really took us to task at their place. We couldn't guard them one-on-one. Being able to mix it up on defense really helped."

Tech broke out of its slump in the fourth quarter. While Johnson continued to shoulder the JSU advance, scoring half of the Gamecocks' 12 points in the final 10 minutes, JSU only knocked down five shots, while Tech was 7-for-10 from the field with Coleman scoring seven points and Brock six as the Golden Eagles outscored JSU 19-12 to secure the victory.

Where JSU's previous M.O. against the Golden Eagles was to pound the paint, the Gamecocks opted to go for 3-pointers, but JSU hit just eight of 25 tried. The Gamecocks did work the ball inside for 30 points, but Tech actually won the battle there, collecting 46 points in the paint.

Neither team turned the ball over much, Tech seven times and nine for JSU.

Photo | Michael Dann, OVC Photo