Peach Belt 20 in 20 – Game #6: Women’s Basketball: Columbus State vs. Francis Marion, Feb. 10, 2008
PBC 20 in 20 rolls on with game #6! Most of the games on our countdown have been in NCAA Regional or PBC Tournaments, but one of the great things about sports is that on any given night, you can see something magical. Such is the case on Feb. 10, 2008, when Francis Marion traveled to Columbus State, a game that was one among many on the schedule, and played a record-setting classic as CSU beat FMU 113-108 (2ot), the highest-scoring game in PBC history.
The 2007-08 season was a breakout year for PBC women’s basketball. When FMU met Columbus State, eight of the 11 PBC teams had a .500 or better record in conference play. An unprecedented five teams would be named conference co-Champions at the end of the year, all with 13-7 league records. 07-08 was also a scoring-fest with 17 games featuring a 100-point scoring team. For the first time, the league also had the #1 scoring team in the nation: Francis Marion.
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| CSU's Maria Grimes hit 12 of 15 free throws against Francis Marion, finishing the game with 19 points and 10 rebounds. |
Under new coach Heather Macy, the Patriots were an offensive whirlwind in 07-08, scoring over 100 points in four of their first six games and crossing the century mark eight times in all during the year. Using a full-court press and no-holds-barred fast break, the Patriots also led the nation in steals.
Columbus State is one of the storied programs in PBC women’s basketball. The first team to make back-to-back trips to the Elite Eight (more on that next week!), the Lady Cougars were young, but gaining confidence. They were especially dangerous at home in the Lumpkin Center, going 9-1 in league play that season.
Both teams had played four games in seven days, the last of which was their showdown on Feb. 10. Both had played the day before; Francis Marion winning at Georgia Southwestern while Columbus State beat Lander at home. CSU was facing their toughest stretch of the year with games at Augusta State then home for Clayton State, Lander and Francis Marion; four of the five teams that would tie for the PBC title.
“I don’t know that either one of us would do anything different because you’re playing on back-to-back days,” recalls Jay Sparks, the head coach of the CSU women’s team in 2008 and now athletic director at Columbus State. “They play their style and you try to adjust to their style. They were really, really good and we knew it, but we thought we could complete if we did what our game plan called for. One of the abstracts about the game of basketball is how it is going to be refereed. To our benefit, they made calls that helped us in the end.”
But no matter how tired they were or how many games they had played heading in, it was as if someone had injected adrenaline into the Lumpkin Center on Feb. 10. From the opening tip and both teams were off and running, it took less than nine seconds for the first three-pointer to be drained. CSU scored the first seven points of the game, but FMU answered and it was tied at nine.
FMU then sprinted out to a five-point lead, only to have CSU come back and tie it at 20. All of
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| Francis Marion's Brittany Young scored nine points with seven rebounds and five assists against CSU in the Feb. 10 game. |
this in the first 11 minutes of play. CSU then got the next punch in, leading by five with 6:16 to go, only to have FMU take the lead right back three minutes later. FMU’s Shannon Singleton-Bates hit a jumper with 44 seconds to go for a three-point Patriot lead, but CSU’s Beverly Ashleigh hit a layup with two seconds left to cut FMU’s lead to 40-39 at the break.
“As everybody is, you’re worried to death about the pressure FMU puts on you,” said Sparks. “But if you could get across half court, they didn’t play the halfcourt defense the same way. Because of their aggressive nature, if we attacked the basket, we’d shoot a lot of free throws. So our game plan was get across half court, attack the basket. But we still turned it over an ungodly amount of the time, but we were successful enough in our game plan to be competitive.”
If the first half was a series of haymakers, the second half began with quick jabs as both teams traded buckets for the first eight minutes. Tied at 51 with 13:14 to go in regulation, FMU put together a 7-0 run capped by free throws from Kevin Ranson. CSU cut into that lead, but the Patriots fought back and actually led by eight with 7:26 to play. CSU came back with an 11-2 streak, Chauntel Ferdinand hitting a big three-pointer midway through, a led by one with 3:30 to go.
And then, just like that, the scoring stopped. Tied at 76 with 1:50 to play, both teams would manage only two more points in the rest of regulation. CSU got two free throws from Monica Sicka with 1:09 to play, but Creshenda Singletary answered for FMU with a jumper with 37 seconds to go. Neither team would score again and the first OT began tied at 78.
The first OT was played like the fast-forward button was held down. Both teams put 16 points up in only five minutes, neither leading by more than two until 12 seconds remained. CSU’s Turelle Jones hit a pair of free throws to give the Lady Cougars a 94-91 lead.
FMU came down for their final possession and Brittany Young launched a three-pointer with two seconds and then fell to the floor. Yasmean Dixon grabbed the long rebound and flipped it right back to Young, just as she got back on her feet, and Young banked in a three-pointer as the horn sounded.
FMU may have had the momentum at that point, but CSU had a plan. “I’m such a believer in coming out of the gate strong,” said Sparks. “In overtime, if you can score on your first possession, it is doubtful if the other team is going to keep up, blow for blow. So even after that basket went in and we had a second overtime, I kept preaching to be successful on your first or second opportunity. We came out of the gate and scored on back-to-back possessions and they didn’t, so they had to play catch up from there.”
CSU dominated the second overtime period, holding FMU scoreless for the first two minutes. A Jennifer Dyer three-pointer cut CSU’s lead to 106-101 with 43 seconds to go, but the Patriots would get no closer. CSU shot 50% from the field in the second OT and hit 13 of 14 free-throw attempts.
“Fatigue was a big factor in the game,” said CSU’s Stafford afterwards. “We were tired and they were tired, and we knew we had to knock down free throws because they were gonna be really important.”
The 221 combined points is still the PBC record for any game ever played in the PBC. Stafford scored 30 points for the Lady Cougars while Sicka had 20 points and 11 rebounds while Hali Moore had 20 points and 10 boards. Jennifer Dyer scored 37 for Francis Marion, tying a PBC-games-only record with nine three-pointers, with 10 boards while Young had 19 points and seven rebounds. Both teams shot over 40% for the game with FMU attempting 91 shots and CSU 89. CSU grabbed 64 rebounds as a team and set a new school scoring record with 113 points.
Special thanks to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer for their assistance with this article.