Lady Falcons championship rally falls short
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[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.
Unfortunately for Wallace's team, it would be as close as the Lady Falcons would get as foul trouble and foul shooting would end up being the team's downfall.
Mitchell, the team's leading scorer and rebounder fouled out with 2:25 remaining in the game. When Mitchell was called for her fifth foul on a play that was challenged by Wallace and reviewed by officials, SIC trailed 68-64.
Then there was the team's struggles at the foul line where SIC connected on 21 of its 32 attempts on the game. On the other end, LTC made 18-of-21 attempts from the charity stripe.
The loss snaps Southeastern Illinois' seven-game winning streak, which included an 86-56 win against Lincoln Trail. The 30-point defeat was the Lady Statesmen's lone loss in Great Rivers Athletic Conference play.
Lincoln Trail College 73, Southeastern Illinois College 69
LTC: Bass 0 1-2 1, Fisher 5 2-3 14, Johnson 5 2-2 13, Green 1 0-0 2, Drake 4 2-2 13, Elliott 8 11-12 28, Sanchez 1 0-0 2. Totals 24 18-21 73.
SIC: Pierce 3 0-0 6, Smith 3 7-8 14, Kelley 1 2-2 5, Macon 1 0-0 3, Bradford 6 8-12 21, Mitchell 6 2-7 14, Evans 2 2-3 6. Totals 22 21-32 69.
Halftime - LTC 43-26.
3-point field goals: LTC 7 (Fisher 2, Johnson 1, Drake 3, Elliott 1). SIC 4 (Smith 1, Kelley 1, Macon 1, Bradford 1).