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Berezhynska, Defense Lead Owls to Upset of Top-Seeded Green Wave
March 3, 2007
Tulsa, Okla. - Valeriya Berezhynska had a career-high 20 rebounds and Rice played smothering defense to upset top-seeded Tulane 64-52 Saturday in the semifinals of the Conference USA women's basketball tournament at the Reynolds Center. The win puts the Owls (19-12) into Sunday's championship game, the second year in a row that Rice has made it to the final. "We beat an outstanding team today that won 25 games," said Rice head coach Greg Williams. "You don't do that without an outstanding team. This was a great defensive effort by the whole team, and we knew coming in that that's what we had to do to win. We knew we wouldn't win it with offense." Rice outhustled the Green Wave on both ends of the court to control the flow of the game in the second half, shooting 50 percent from the field and holding Tulane to 30.3 percent. The Owls also had five blocked shots in the second half and held Green Wave leading scorer Jami Montagnino to only two points in the game. A Samantha Stovall three-pointer and buckets by Lauren Neaves and Kadie Riverin gave Rice a 9-4 lead five minutes into the game as both teams struggled early. Ashley Langford pulled Tulane within one with a jumper at the 10:57 mark, and her two free throws gave the Green Wave the lead. The teams traded buckets for the rest of the half before Berezhynska scored on a layup and Stovall hit a free throw to give the Owls a 28-26 lead at the buzzer.
Neaves and Krystal Frazier helped Rice to a 32-28 lead to open the second half, and a Neaves layup and free throw increased the margin to 38-32 with 14:37 left. After Riverin canned a jumper, Frazier became the 13th member of Rice's career 1,000-point club with a sweet jumper from the right side with 12:55 on the clock. Riverin nailed another jumper and Frazier drained a three to cap off a 12-0 Rice run and give the Owls their biggest lead of the game at 47-32 with 10:47 remaining. Nikki Luckhurst converted a pair of free throws and tacked on a bucket two minutes later for the Green Wave, and a Megan Valicevic basket cut the Rice lead to eight at 49-41. Three charity shots and a bucket by Berezhynska, and a Neaves basket keyed a 7-0 Rice run to put the margin back at 15 with 5:07 left, and the Owls controlled the game down the stretch to hold off two treys by Luckhurst on the way to the upset of C-USA's regular-season champion. Berezhynska, who had her fifth double-double of the season, tied for game scoring honors with Neaves, as both players tallied 16 points. Frazier had 11 points and Riverin added 10, while Neaves and Stovall blocked three shots each. Luckhurst led Tulane with 15 points, and Langford had 10. The Owls will play the winner of the UAB-ECU game Sunday at 4:30 pm CST on ESPN2 for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. |
