BY: CON MARSHALL
CSC Sports Information
For Colorado Christian, the game could not have been scripted better. For Chadron State it was a heart-breaker. That’s the way the women’s basketball contest played in Chadron on Tuesday night ended.
The Eagles came from a 10-point deficit in the final 94 seconds to tie the score with four seconds left, only to have the Cougars’ Maggie Phipps, while on the run and still a stride or two behind the arc on the north side of the Chicoine Center, successfully launch a 3-pointer that was barely out of her hand and still in the air when the final buzzer sounded. The final score was Cougars 74, Eagles 71.
The winning shot was one of four “buzzer-beaters” that the visitors made.
As the first half was ending, the Cougars’ Tessa Hauser broke a 27-27 tie with a 3-pointer. And, at the end of both the first and third periods, a member of the Colorado team grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on a follow shot an instant before the clock expired.
Nicole Bowlin did it at the end of the first frame and Agnes Paul repeated the process at the end of the third.
The Eagles also made a lot of big shots—particularly in the fourth quarter when Shay Powers scored 13 points and Kyra Tanabe 12, six of them on CSC’s only 3-pointers of the game.
The first quarter put Chadron State in the hole. The Eagles made just two of 11 shots from the field and were behind 18-7 following Bowlin’s late bucket.
To their credit, the Eagles made up lots of ground in the second period by hitting eight of 11 field goal shots to tie the count before Hauser’s trey at the buzzer gave the Cougars a 30-27 halftime lead
Chadron State’s only lead in the entire game was at 23-22 with 1:50 remaining in the second quarter on Olivia Waufle’s free throw. Four seconds later, Hauser nailed a 3-pointer, one of 11 that her team hit, to put Christian ahead again.
The Cougars led 46-40 heading into the final stanza, when both teams shot right at 60% and combined to tally 59 points. The visitors built their lead to 12 points early in the fourth and were still ahead 68-58 with 1:34 remaining.
That’s when the Eagles really started perking and tied the score. They made all six of their final shots—four of them layups by Powers, one a trey by Tanabe and the other a layup by Waufle after she grabbed Powers’ desperation over-the-shoulder heave that kept the Eagles from losing the ball out of bounds.
Tanabe, the redshirt freshman from Hawaii, was the game’s leading scorer with 24 points while Powers finished with 17 after she scored just two points in the first half. Waufle finished with nine and and Allison Olsen added eight.
Bowlin led Christian with 18 points while Phipps and center Dasiya Jones each scored 15. Hauser added nine.
Despite their two of 11 performance in the first quarter, the Eagles finished the game shooting 49% (25-51) from the field. The Cougars hit right at 37.5% on both 2- and 3-point shots. Eleven of their 21 buckets came from long range.
Both teams came into the game with 4-10 RMAC records. The Cougars outscored the Eagles in each quarter while winning 85-52 when the teams met Dec. 7 in Denver.
Colorado Christian—Nicole Bowlin 18, Dasiya Jones 15, Maggie Phipps 15, Tessa Hauser 9, Agnes Paul 7, Regan Loconte 6, Mykaela Moore 2, Maggie Hutka 2. Totals: 21-56 (11-29) 21-28 74 points, 36 rebounds, 15 turnovers.
Chadron State—Kyra Tanabe 24, Shay Powers 17, Olivia Waufle 9, Allison Olsen 8, Samiyah Worrell 4, Kaden Comer 4, Claudia Dollinger 4, Riley Aiono 1. Totals: 25-51 (2-10) 19-27 71 points, 31 rebounds, 14 turnovers.
Colorado Christian 18 12 16 28 ---74
Chadron State 7 20 13 31 ---71
3-pointers: CCU—Phiipps 3, Bowlin 2, Hauser 2, Loconte 2, Jones 2. CSC—Tanabe 2.