#13 South Plains knocks off #4 Northwest Florida State 54-50 to advance to Elite 8

LUBBOCK — South Plains College head women's basketball coach Ara Baten knew his team was capable – it was just a matter of when.

Staring down a familiar foe and defending national champions in the Sweet 16 round of the NJCAA Women's Basketball National Tournament, that moment arrived Friday afternoon as #13 South Plains knocked off #4 Northwest Florida State 54-50 at Lubbock Christian University's Rip Griffin Center to advance to the Elite 8 against #12 Western Nebraska on Saturday at 5 p.m.   

"We played well defensively, and forced them to take tough shots," Baten said. "Early on, we rebounded the ball well, and got off to a good start, and that was important. When you're playing a great team like that, to get off to the start we did, I thought that kind of set the tone for us."

South Plains jumped out to a 13-2 lead to begin the contest as sophomore Viktoria Ivanova popped a jumper from seven feet with 4:31 in the opening stint. Trailing 14-5 after 10 minutes, Northwest Florida closed the gap to six, 17-11, on a layup from Sabou Gueye with 5:04 to play in the second quarter. The Lady Raiders would then trim the deficit to just one heading into the break, as LSU signee Last Tear-Poa floated in a layup with 19 seconds remaining in the front half, giving South Plans a 21-20 lead at the midway point.

"Northwest Florida is big and athletic, and they fight through screens and are hard to deal with," Baten said. "They were playing with urgency, and we had some bad turnovers, but we had some that was just good defense. We turned it around and didn't get down on it, and got some big stops and some big rebounds and made a couple plays when we needed to."

Trading buckets to begin the second half, Northwest Florida took its first lead of the contest when Gueye converted a layup in traffic to give the Lady Raiders a 26-25 advantage with just over eight minutes left in the third. South Plains quickly answered, ripping off a 7-0 run capped by a layup from Ivanova to put the Lady Texans back up 32-26 with 4:55 to play in the quarter.

"We got them into some bad matchups at times and were able to exploit some of those matchups," Baten said. "They quickly fixed the matchup issue, and at that point, it comes down to execution."

Trailing 38-32 to begin the final frame, Northwest Florida used a 7-0 run to retake the lead 39-38 on a layup from Poa with 7:01 to play. South Plains responded with a 5-0 run to recapture the lead, 43-39 on a 3 from Raija Todd with 6:46 to go.

"We came back and hit big shots on the next two possessions to retake the lead, so they weren't able to really get any momentum," Baten said. "I thought those two possessions were big for us to regain the lead and try to maintain control of the ballgame."

Trading buckets over the next five and a half minutes, Poa would get the Lady Raiders within a single possession with 30 seconds left with a pair of free throws, trimming their deficit to 50-47. Following a pair of free throws from Todd which put SPC back up five, 52-47, Northwest Florida's Nashana Gilbert connected on a triple from the right wing to bring NWF within two, 52-50 with 25 ticks left.

Following a timeout, Northwest Florida was able to force a turnover on the following possession, as South Plains looked for one final stop on the defensive end. The Lady Raiders would put the ball into the hands of Poa, who drove into the teeth of the Lady Texan's defense, which denied the reigning National Tournament MVP a clean look and stifled the Lady Raiders.

"You have to pick your poison with everybody, and the only chance we had was to keep them out of the paint as much as possible, and they still got in there quite a bit," Baten said. "I thought our kids did well. Our big people played well on the glass, and I thought we did ok, and I'm happy for our kids."

Northwest Florida (27-3) was forced to foul on their next defensive possession, putting sophomore Ashala Moseberry at the free throw line. The Madison, Wisconsin native wouldn't flinch, knocking down a pair to send the Lady Texans back to the Elite 8 for the second consecutive season.

"I don't know if there's a team in the country that has two better wings than we got," Baten said. "I'll go fight anybody we're going to play with Viktoria and Ashala."

Moseberry finished with 14 points, five boards, and three steals over 35 minutes for South Plains (22-8), connecting on 4 of 10 shots from the field and was 4 of 10 from distance. Todd tallied 14 points and three assists, while Ivanova netted 11 points and snagged seven boards. Celia Sumbane chipped in 10 points and swatted three blocked shots as the Lady Texans shot 31.3 percent from the floor and 22.7 percent from distance.

"We really wanted to win this one, and it feels so good," Moseberry said. We were able to stay composed, and when things got close, we calmed each other down and trusted each other. Last year when we saw our lead drop we kind of dropped our heads, but this year knew we just had to keep going. No matter the time or the score, we were going to keep going until the clock was out."

Poa finished with a game-high 18 points and six rebounds as Northwest Florida shot 34.5 percent from the field, 28.6 percent from distance, and were just 8 of 15 from the free throw line.