Fourth-quarter surge propels CSU women to Regional Final

For three quarters on Saturday night at the Lumpkin Center, the Lander University women’s basketball team thought the third time was the charm against the Columbus State Lady Cougars. CSU had already defeated Lander once in the regular season and once for the Peach Belt championship earlier this month.

Powered by a 28-point fourth quarter, however, CSU had other ideas.

After Lander took a one-point lead into the final frame, the Lady Cougars outscored Lander 28-17 to take a 73-63 win.

“They kind of woke up,” CSU head coach Anita Howard said of the fourth quarter run. “We just played our game, We played high-low with the post to our size advantage, and we looked to attack. I don’t think we attacked in the first part of the game. I also changed up our press defense a bit. They were used to the press we were running in the first half, so that small adjustment I think changed.”

The Lady Cougars punched their ticket to the Southeast Regional Final on at 7 p.m. Monday against Lincoln Memorial at the Lumpkin Center.

Lincoln Memorial, out of Harrogate, Tenn., is a program that comes into Monday night’s championship game with a 28-4 record. They dispatched Peach Belt member Clayton State 87-58 in the opening round and defeated Wingate earlier on Saturday 85-66 to advance to the final.

Senior Ashley Asouzu led all scorers with 19 points on Saturday night. She also pulled down 18 rebounds to lead all CSU players.

Teammate Alexis Carter also joined Asouzu with a double-double, scoring 16 and adding 11 boards.

Gabby Williams followed up a season-high 19-point effort in the quarterfinal game against Anderson with 15 points Saturday night, joining Asouzu and Carter as the three Lady Cougars in double figures on the night.

Asouzu’s and Williams’ performances were more remarkable in that both were battling illness throughout the game.

“We were talking about the warrior mentality,” said Howard. “Sometimes you won’t have your X’s and O’s going, but you just have to get it in gear. (Gabby) played every minute as hard as she possibly could. That’s why we won. We needed her to step up. She’s one of our defensive juggernauts. For her to push through, and for (Ashley) to push through, it shows how much they cared about this team and this season. They didn’t want to go home tonight.

“I’m extremely proud of how we played tonight. There were so many intangibles that showed the character of this team at this moment in time. I just had a conversation about Lady Cougar basketball and what we wanted to accomplish. To battle through with a big win, I’m just floored. I’m truly blessed to have a team that can fight like they did tonight for not just me, not just them, but they did it for Columbus State. There was so much on this game the scoreboard doesn’t even show. I’m truly happy.”

The two teams battled to a deadlock both after the first quarter and at halftime as well. For Howard, it was a matter of their hallmark defense not firing on all cylinders in the first half.

“I never worried about our offense at all,” Howard said. “I was worried about not stopping Lander’s dribble penetration. I felt like we were rushing, not really executing any of our offensive sets or defensive rotations. For us to be tied at halftime, I was very happy. It could have been an extremely lopsided score.

“Lander has a phenomenal program. (Head coach Kevin Pederson) is a classy guy and has a classy program. All three games have been different games. He made his adjustments, I made my adjustments. They fought, and I’m glad they prepare us for heading into (Monday’s) game.”

“This was our goal at the beginning of the year, to carry the torch on to greatness,” Howard said. “We’re deep. We’re not just deep athletically. We’ve grown as a family.

“I’ve put this group through a lot of tests and a lot of battles. We’ve done community service, we’ve done boot camp, we’ve done a lot of stuff so that we can have these type of moments to come together and finish strong.”

This story was originally published March 11, 2017 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Fourth-quarter surge propels CSU women to Regional Final."