2005 SCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
QUARTERFINAL ROUND

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Sewanee-Univ. of the South prevailed in a nip-and-tuck affair, defeating the Fightin’ Engineers of Rose-Hulman 84-79 in the second women's quarterfinal game of the 2005 SCAC Basketball Tournament.

The first half started with a back-and-forth battle between the two squads. Vanessa Gamble hit a three-pointer at 7:20 to knot the score at 24 for Sewanee.

Three minutes later, Carlson scored a layup and then nailed a three to give Rose-Hulman their largest lead of the half at 35-28. A pair of Forsyth free-throws maintained the seven-point margin with a 42-35 score as the teams headed to the locker rooms.

After shooting 57% in the first half, Rose-Hulman continued to stay hot in the second half. Karyn Kost hit a three before Carlson and Forsyth added layups to push the margin to 12 points at 16:41.

The Tigers were able to cut the lead to just six points as Courtney Childress converted a three-point play five minutes later. 

Kost and Floyd each hit a three-pointer as the Engineers pushed their lead back to 12. Rose-Hulman led 68-56 with 7:46 to go.

Sewanee then resumed their charge. A pair of layups from Dani Pettay and Jamie McConnell cut the Engineer lead to four points. This 8-0 run took only 1:39. Pettay (pictured above) finished the game with a team-high 28 points, while McConnell added 21 and a team-high nine rebounds. Sally Jackson added 12 points and eight rebounds.

Just a minute later, the Tigers put together another 8-0, two minute run. This time, a pair of Silvania Toro free-throws gave Sewanee a 72-71 lead with 2:50 on the clock.

Forsyth hit a jumper and a pair of free-throws to tie the game back up at 77 with under a minute to play, but Sewanee pulled away at the line themselves.

Toro and Pettay reached the line twice each in the final two minutes of play, and the Tigers hit 9-of-10 at the charity stripe to put the game out of reach at 84-79.

Rose-Hulman was led by Rebekah Forsyth, who was 11-23 from the field and 7-8 at the line for 29 points - a new SCAC Tournament record. She added a game-high seventeen rebounds for the Engineers, which gave her the new SCAC single-season record with 306 boards.

The Engineers finish the 2004-2005 season with the best record in school history at 13-13. This is a two-game improvement on last year’s 11-15 season.

Sewanee (19-6) will move to the semi-finals of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament with a 1:00 game Saturday. The Tigers will take on Trinity, who defeated Millsaps 73-47 earlier in the day.