Holding a second-place plaque must have been bittersweet for the Southeastern Illinois College women's basketball team, considering that on the other side of the court Lincoln Trail was huddle around a bigger prize.
Kelsey Bradford scored 21 points, while Courtney Smith and Dameika Mitchell put in 14 points each, but it was not enough as the Southeastern Illinois College women's basketball team fell to Lincoln Trail College 73-69 in Saturday's regional final showdown.
Head coach Rod Wallace was pleased with the way the team withstood the opening blow delivered by Lincoln Trail.
"Being down 17 points at halftime, kids sat here asking is the half full or half empty. Our kids usually take the half full approach and we need to fill it up and that's what they did," Wallace said. "That was pretty much indicitive of our season. It would have been really easy to crawl in a hole and finish with four or five wins this season. We didn't do that."
SIC faced a 43-26 halftime deficit, as Lincoln Trail bullied the Lady Falcons during a 22-4 run to end the first half. The rally by the Lady Statesmen began shortly after Southeastern Illinois took a 22-21 lead as Bradford took the ball from coast-to-coast and finished strong with a lay-up at the 7:24 mark in the first half.
However, it did not seem as if the Lady Falcons were shaken when the second half started as the team opened up the period with six unanswered points. SIC would chip away at Lincoln Trail's lead little by little, cutting it to five on a score by Daviah Pierce that was set up by a stolen pass.
"We weren't working hard enough. We told them we needed to do it defensively and felt we didn't cover the glass like we should. And we weren't," head coach Rod Wallace said after the game. "But we made a turnaround, a quick one. We got in the passing lanes, got some steals and we were back in the game."
Southeastern would climb almost all the way back as a pair of free throws by Smith trimmed the team's deficit to 53-52 with 12:06.
The Lady Statesmen would fend off the run as they embarked on a 9-1 run to establish a bit of a cushion.
Despite Lincoln Trail's attempts to bury Southeastern Illinois College, the Lady Falcons dug their way out of trouble and eventually cut the No. 1 seed's lead to 66-64 as Smith buried a 3-point field goal from the far corner with 3:45 left in the game.
