March 13, 2008

Box Score

Green Bay, Wis. - For 33 minutes, ninth-seeded Loyola gave host and top-seeded Green Bay all it could handle but the battle-tested Phoenix used a 16-4 run in the latter stages of the second half to finally gain control in an 83-67 victory over the Ramblers in a Horizon League Quarterfinal game tonight at the Kress Center. Loyola's season comes to an end with an 8-23 record while Green Bay improves to 26-4 with the win.

"For over 30 minutes tonight we showed we could compete with a team and a program that has dominated the Horizon League for the last decade," said head coach Shannon Reidy. "I could not be happier with our effort and how we competed. We knew that we would be facing a different Green Bay team than we saw a couple of weeks ago during the regular season. Our team is still learning how to win, and we have seen flashes of it throughout the season, but we knew it would take 40 great minutes to knock off this team in this environment and, unfortunately, we came up a little short tonight."

Green Bay, which has been idle since Saturday, jumped on Loyola early, as the Ramblers missed their first five shots from the floor and found themselves in an early 10-0 hole just under four minutes into the game. Elyse VanBogaert finally got the Ramblers on the board, rattling in a mid-range jumper, and Loyola finally began to settle in. Maggie McCloskey fed Shannon Finnegan and Brittany Boeke for hoops inside and Keisha Collins drove the lane for another bucket to make it a 12-8 game at the 12:07 mark. The Phoenix was able to bump the lead back up to nine (17-8) on a Lavesa Glover basket but Loyola whipped off an 11-3 spurt, capped by a Jana Lucas three-pointer, to draw within one (20-19) with just under eight minutes on the clock. Consecutive treys from Green Bay brought on a Loyola timeout and the Ramblers, led by McCloskey, responded by warming up from downtown. The sophomore buried a pair from long distance to make it a one-point game and Collins drilled another one to forge a 33-all tie. After VanBogaert scored, McCloskey connected on her fourth triple of the period to cap an 11-2 run, giving LU a 38-33 lead and stunning the home crowd. Four free throws in the final minute helped GB chip away but the Ramblers still took a 38-37 lead into the locker room.

The second half started out just like the first and Green Bay quickly raced out to a 51-41 lead on the heels of a 14-3 run to open the half. McCloskey shook free for her fifth triple of the night and a Finnegan put-back quickly pulled Loyola within five. The lead hovered between five and eight points, with the Ramblers having an answer for each Phoenix spurt and LU found itself down just four (62-58) after McCloskey hit 2 of 3 from the line after being fouled on a three-pointer. After Glover scored to up the lead to six, Loyola missed a lay-up on its end leading to a three-pointer in transition from Rachel Porath that boosted the lead back up to nine and the Ramblers could not recover as GB was finally able to gain some separation and cruised over the final five minutes.

McCloskey led the way for Loyola, knocking down six from long range en route to a game-high 22 points. The six treys gave McCloskey 90 for the season, three better than Mary Just's single-season school record and just three short of Jessica Wilhite's (UWM) single-season Horizon League mark. She was joined in double figures by her backcourt mate Collins and VanBogaert, each of whom finished with 16 points. Glover led four Green Bay players in double figures with 21 points.

Loyola returns all five starters from this year's team and welcomes an acclaimed group of incoming freshman for the 2008-09 season.