By Elliott Bell
It wasn’t until all the regular seasons games had been played that the Pride women’s basketball team found out just where it would rank for the upcoming Colonial Athletic Association Tournament.
Following a 65-61 loss to a strong University of North Carolina-Wilmington the Pride slips into the three spot at the upcoming tourney. Perennial powerhouse, Old Dominion University will host the tournament and go in as the No. 1 ranked team after compiling a 17-1 conference mark.
Based on conference tie-breaking procedures, George Mason University will be the No. 2 seed. Both the Pride and George Mason finished the season with 11-7 conference records, but George Masons’ two victories over the Pride this season gave them the advantage.
Conference officials were kept busy trying to figure out the rest of the seeds. A three way tie for fourth place was broken down as follows: Delaware University seeded fourth, UNC Wilmington seeded fifth and Virginia Commonwealth University seeded sixth.
The Pride hopes to nab the second seed. A win over UNC-Wilmington would have done just that, but instead it will play VCU in its first contest.The Pride had a good shot at beating the Seahawks in the finale, but fell short at the end. Senior forward Tracy Morgan’s scored a career-high 22 points and completed her third double-double of the season with 10 rebounds to lead the Hawks.
Red-shirt freshman Cigi McCollin led the way for the Pride with 16 points, while true freshman Shalamar Oakley dropped in 13 off the bench. Amaka Agugua added 10 points and 10 rebounds for her team leading fifth double-double of the season.
The Pride trailed 50-48 with 9:02 remaining in the game when McCollin drained a three from the top of the key to put the team ahead 51-50. The lead grew to 57-54 before UNC-Wilmington started to fight back.The lead went back and forth for the final three minutes until Morgan converted an old-fashion three point play to push the score to 62-61, putting Seahawks ahead for good with 28 seconds to play. Morgan also shot 3 of 4 from the charity stripe in the final 14 seconds to secure the win.
CAA preseason player of the year, Cherie Lea, was held in check for most of the game. She managed 8 points, 8 rebounds and dished out 3 assists.
Despite the loss, this is a new and exciting period for the Pride. This will mark the first time since the 1996-97 season that the Pride has earned a first round bye in the conference tournament when it went to the quarterfinals in the America East Conference.
The ultimate goal at the beginning of the season for this team was to dance come March. The first major step to that goal was to put itself in a good position to win the conference tournament. Evelen conference wins have done just that.
The next giant step for this team comes Thursday, when the Pride takes on VCU. If all goes well in the next few days, there may just be some dancing going on in Hempstead.