MCKENZIE, Tenn. – Adison Corder made the go-ahead bucket, swiped a steal and hit a free throw all in the final 20 seconds of the University of Pikeville's 76-74 win over Blue Mountain (Miss.) in the second game of the MSC/SSAC Challenge.
The Toppers (1-3) went up 74-73 on two freebies made by Matavia Cox with 20 seconds left. Coming out of two timeouts, UPIKE (3-2) let the clock tick down to three seconds before Corder sank the runner in the paint. Blue Mountain used one more timeout, but couldn't avoid Corder from grabbing a steal that led to her sealing the win at the stripe.
Corder made just one of the two shots, but with just over a second on the clock, there wasn't enough time for the Toppers to get off a shot.
Rachel Lee led the Bears with 16 points including a team-best two makes from 3. Mia Greatrex and Aundrea Matchen added 13 and 12 points off the bench. Corder, Jamie Castle, Emily Baker and Kayla Mullins scored eight points each, while Castle also dished out 10 assists.
The Toppers had a pair of big scorers with Cox and Emilee Murr going for 29 and 25 points.
It was as even a game as you'll find as the teams shot a near identical percentage at right around 46 percent and UPIKE had just one more rebound at 29-28. The Toppers even made three extra 3-pointers, but it looks like their four extra turnovers likely made the difference as the Bears' other advantage was one extra made free throw,
Blue Mountain finished with 20 turnovers compared to 16 for UPIKE. It just so happened that the Bears were able to attempt four more field goal attempts, leading to a 20-16 gap in points off turnovers.
Led by Matchen's 12 points, UPIKE finished with a 23-0 lead in bench points as the Toppers only played eight players.
The first quarter wasn't friendly to UPIKE as it had just eight points nine minutes into the action and trailed 20-8. But for the next six minutes, the Toppers didn't score a point, instead watching UPIKE rattle off an 11-0 run to cut the deficit to one.
Three minutes later UPIKE regained the lead on two free throws by Matchen to make it 25-24. Matched added a jumper to make the lead five with two minutes until halftime and neither team scored another point in that span.
The Bears led for the entire third quarter, including matching the biggest lead of the game with a 12-point advantage of their own on a 3 by Lee to end the frame.
Blue Mountain fought back with a 7-0 run to open the final quarter and added an 8-0 run a few minutes later to retake the lead at 67-66 with 3:12 to play.
The lead would change hands three times the rest of the way, once when a 3 by Lee put UPIKE up by one, but Blue Mountain flipped that with Cox's late free throws. In the end, Corder was the hero as her layup and steal made it two happy nights in a row for the Bears.
UP NEXT
The Bears wrap up the MSC/SSAC Challenge against Martin Methodist at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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