Box Score BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Albany State forced Benedict into 27 turnovers and scored 23 points off turnovers to beat the Benedict College Lady Tigers 74-64 to win the 2015 SIAC Women's Basketball Tournament championship on Sunday morning in the Bill Harris Arena.
Kristine Lesane had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds, while
Kari Jones scored a team-high 14 points. Albany State focused their defense on shutting down Benedict center
Britenique Harrison, who was held to five points and eight rebounds but still was named to the All-Tournament team.
Benedict, now 23-6, must await the NCAA Division II selection show Sunday evening to find out if the Lady Tigers will advance to the NCAA Tournament. Albany State, 19-9, earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for winning the SIAC crown.
Mecca Frost, named the tournament's Most Valuable Player, scored 26 points and had 10 rebounds. Artisha Holston, also named to the All-Tournament team, added 12 points and nine rebounds, while Keidra Green added 14 points.
Albany State started to pull away in the first half and built as much as a 12-point first-half lead. Benedict was able to cut the lead to 36-32 at the half as
Carissa Shropshire closed out the first half with a 3-pointer.
Back-to-back 3-pointers and a jumper by Frost for the Lady Golden Rams early in the second half gave Albany State a double-digit lead again, 44-34.
A layup by Lesane with 9:45 left to play cut the lead to 53-48, but Albany State responded with six straight points and held on for the win.
The loss for Benedict snapped a seven-game winning streak. Their last loss was a 76-69 defeat at Albany State on February 7. Albany State extended their winning streak to 13 games. Their last loss was a 55-53 defeat at Benedict on Jan. 22. This was also a rematch of last year's SIAC Championship game, which Benedict won in overtime.
Benedict coach
James Rice said he expected Albany State to come out with some full-court pressure defense, especially since Benedict struggled with LeMoyne-Owen's full court press in the semifinals.
"A lot of teams in our conference do that because of our size. You want to try to take our size away. You want to speed up the game so we don't go inside. That's pretty much everybody's game plan against us," Rice said.
Albany State head coach Robert Skinner said that was a key to the Lady Rams' success.
"We saw they were having some ballhandling issues with LeMoyne-Owen. We used it during the season, but not to the extent we used it today," Skinner said.
