WBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[FlightofthePetrel]

Kulavic becomes the women's SCAC All-Time leading scorer on a 3 pointer late in the second half.  She's having a monster game currently with 32 points on 14-17 shooting in a barn burner in Danville

Oglethorpe 70  Center 68    with 2:00 left

[Ralph Turner]

Kulavic becomes the women's SCAC All-Time leading scorer on a 3 pointer late in the second half.  She's having a monster game currently with 32 points on 14-17 shooting in a barn burner in Danville

Oglethorpe 70  Center 68    with 2:00 left

The rest of the South Region is yelling for Centre! 

Centre led 68-66 with 3:00 left.

[FlightofthePetrel]

Oglethorpe 76-73... Centre cuts it to 3 on a Maggie Prewitt layup with 23 seconds to go....

[Ralph Turner]

Oglethorpe 76-73... Centre cuts it to 3 on a Maggie Prewitt layup with 23 seconds to go....

Congratulations to the Stormy Petrels on surviving the road trip.

Ogle79 Centre 75 Final.

[FlightofthePetrel]

The Petrels hang on for the win 79-75 behind a tremendous performance by Katie Kulavic who finished with  33 points and 9 rebounds (14-17 from the field).  Tina Grace and Anna Findley chipped in with 19 and 18 points respectively.  Looks like Centre has a very balanced scoring attack with 4 players in double figures, Chelsea Goodman led the way with 24 points while Lauren Huter chipped in 14 and 10.  Just by looking at the stats the rebounding margin could be the reason OU won today as they outrebounded Centre by a commanding margin 39-25.

Congrats to the Petrels as it looks like they've wrapped up the #1 seed for the Eastern Division... I believe we hold the tiebreaker against Depauw?

[pbrooks3]

Good to see KPM have a good game tonight, especially after last night's frustrating effort which saw her play only 18 minutes due to foul trouble (and a technical to boot).  In what is in all likelihood her last home game, Krista had 33 points and 15 rebounds in Trinity's 83-62 win over Austin College.  She also tied Terri Hailey for the Trinity career rebounding lead.

Good ballgame at Centre; Oglethorpe showed why they're highly ranked with a good road win today after a real war at DePauw Friday.  Centre put up a good fight but had no answer for the senior-laden crew of OU, especially Katie Kavalic.  KK was 14-17 from the field with 33 points and 9 rebounds.  Chelsea Goodman with 24 and freshman Lauren Huter of Centre who had a double-double (16 pts; 10 boards) put up solid figures for the Lady Colonels.  Colonels were able to turnover Oglethorpe a fair number of times, but got outrebounded and outshot by an outstanding team.

[FlightofthePetrel]

Good ballgame at Centre; Oglethorpe showed why they're highly ranked with a good road win today after a real war at DePauw Friday.  Centre put up a good fight but had no answer for the senior-laden crew of OU, especially Katie Kavalic.  KK was 14-17 from the field with 33 points and 9 rebounds.  Chelsea Goodman with 24 and freshman Lauren Huter of Centre who had a double-double (16 pts; 10 boards) put up solid figures for the Lady Colonels.  Colonels were able to turnover Oglethorpe a fair number of times, but got outrebounded and outshot by an outstanding team.

Pbrooks... Centre will be a force to be reckoned with next year in the SCAC with only 2 seniors and a plethora of young talent that will most likely be able to step up next year.  Combine that with an equally impressive recruiting class like this year and I wouldn't be surprised if they win the East...  granted they're going to have to go through OU and DPU to do that but they've proved they're capable of that this year.

[DPU3619]

From the SCAC website:

Friday - Quarterfinals at Hendrix College
1 p.m. CT - #1W Trinity (11-4/18-7) vs. #4E Rhodes (6-8/13-12)
3 p.m. CT - #2E DePauw (12-2/21-4)  vs. #3W Hendrix (7-8/14-11)
6 p.m. CT - #1E Oglethorpe (12-2/22-3) vs. #4W Millsaps (5-10/10-15)
8 p.m. CT - #2W Colorado College (8-6/15-8) vs. #3E Centre (10-4/17-8) 

Saturday - Semifinals at Hendrix College
1 p.m. CT - Winner 1 West/4 East vs. Winner No. 2 East/3 West
3 p.m. CT - Winner 1 East/4 West vs. Winner No. 2 West/3 East

Sunday - Finals at Hendrix College
12 p.m. CT - Winner 5 p.m. Semifinal vs. Winner 7 p.m. Semifinal

[FlightofthePetrel]

Thanks Wes for that information.

I would also like to make note that head Coach Ron Sattele earned his 100th victory today.  This is Sattele's 5th year as the head coach of the OU women's program and 91 of those wins have come in the past 4 years...

Sattele now stands with a career record of 100-41... (91-25 with this years seniors- his first recruiting class).

Congrats Coach! 

[pbrooks3]

I am proud about the season the Lady Colonels have had.  This was expected to be a continuation of the rebuilding effort that Coach Austin-Robinson started some time ago.  The 3rd place finish in the east with an outside chance to get the 2nd seed this afternoon in the game against Oglethorpe was outstanding, and I agree with FlightofthePetrel on his assessment of the team's future.  While a few of the freshmen have been big contributors this season, there is much depth in the freshmen class to build on next year.  Also if the coaching staff has another big recruiting year, Centre will improve their lot even further.

While I can imagine the Colonels women are saddened by a 4-point defeat to OU, today's game has to be a character builder for this predominantly young squad.  The team can take something from this loss, and hopefully realize toughness is a big component they can employ next weekend in their opening round game against Colorado College.  CC put a loss on Centre earlier this season in Danville so I know the Lady Colonels will be prepared to step it up Friday in Conway. 

Congratulations Centre on a wonderful regular season, and good luck in the SCAC tournament next weekend.

[Ron Boerger]

Official website for the SCAC basketball tourney @ Hendrix:

http://www.hendrix.edu/athletics/content.aspx?id=38292

Live stats will be available, as well as expensive video (tho it's a lot cheaper than travelling to Arkansas).

Obviously Oglethorpe and DePauw are the favorites - also the only schools who can lose and expect a Pool C.   Centre and Trinity have shown they can be competitive with those two at home but on a neutral court the odds will be against them.  The most likely path for either to win a championship would be through both the Stormy Petrels and the Greencastle Tigers, and that's a lot to ask of two young teams.

The injury to Krista Prato-Matthews, though it likely cost them at least one (Centre) and possibly two wins (at Hendrix in her first game back) could be a blessing.  When I saw the second game against Southwestern the offense moved the ball around much better in the first half.  Some of the younger players have come on, especially first year Ali Marzella, who led the team in scoring six of the last ten games and can shoot the three ball.   If she can shoot well early that will give KPM a little more room to roam inside, which in turn will help Trinity's changes of winning more than a first-round game. 

[Scottatlga]

Just got back to Atlanta from my trip to Indiana & Kentucky for SCAC basketball!  Remember, my views are based on seeing only OU play this season (at home).  Friday night at DePauw was not pretty from OU's standpoint.  DePauw's Bigs had a really good game rebounding and scoring (Coach Huffman has a deeper bench than most of the teams I have seen and she subs them in very well).  The Petrels seemed to lose their confidence and swagger on Friday night.  But I have to tell you that the last 5 minutes of that game were really something to see with OU coming back form an 84-64 deficit to cut the lead to 4 and trail 88-84.  I heard several DePauw fans after the game saying that they got very nervous towards the end.  If only, they had started that run with 7 minutes to go instead of 5!

Sunday's game at Centre was a lot of fun to watch, as both teams were playing great ball - neither team could get that run and take command of the game.  Katie Kulavic had an outstanding game - 33 points on 14 of 17 shooting!  I was really happy to see her get the conference scoring record, but I have to tell you...Katie is a great individual player, no doubt, but she is the consummate team player - she only wants what is best for the team and it shows in her grit, determination and spirit on the court.  I have to agree with previous posts about Centre though - they are doing some really good things right now, but next year, they may just be the team to beat in the Eastern Division.  Any team that has to play them this weekend better come ready to play!

Looking forward to reports from Hendrix this weekend since I can't be there

Go Petrels!

[Scottatlga]

Forgot to mention...overall, the officiating was pretty even at both DePauw and Centre this weekend.  The calls were pretty balanced...with 2 exceptions - the Refs at DePauw refused to call 3 second violations on DePauw's women...there were blatant violations the whole game with DPU just camped out in the lane (could be why they lead the conference in rebounding margin).  The other officiating story came from one ref in the OU/Centre Men's game on Sunday...Coach Ponder from OU was working an official early on in the contest and the ref just went off and gave him a warning immediately (he must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, because he was just cranky).  I knew immediately that there were going to be issues later in the game and "Cranky Ref" did end up giving OU's bench a technical in the 2nd half.
The officiating is not terribly different than what I see down here (lack of consistency and no one calls 3 seconds in the lane).  The biggest problem has to be with consistency though - one play it's almost like someone tackles another player and nothing is called, the next minute, someone gets called for a touch and it interrupts the whole flow of the game!  I don't want to get down on the Refs, Heaven knows I couldn't do it, but if you are going to let them play, let them play and stick with it...stop going back and forth.

[FlightofthePetrel]

The other officiating story came from one ref in the OU/Centre Men's game on Sunday...Coach Ponder from OU was working an official early on in the contest and the ref just went off and gave him a warning immediately (he must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, because he was just cranky).  I knew immediately that there were going to be issues later in the game and "Cranky Ref" did end up giving OU's bench a technical in the 2nd half.

Not sure what happened at the beginning of the game to set the ref off but the "witty" comment that drew the tech. was probably deserved...    I'm still laughing from that one.

[DPU3619]

Some interesting scenarios brewing with these region rankings as we get down to the proverbial nitty gritty here....

Oglethorpe's still #1 in the South Region, but they've got a one loss Greensboro team with an undefeated region record right underneath them.

Yeah, sure the Pride have the 253rd ranked OWP and a OOWP that isn't much better, but what happens if Oglethorpe doesn't win the SCAC tourney this week?  Do they let OU stay #1 with the 4 region losses but a decent OWP while Greensboro finishes 24-0 in the region?  The Pride will probably run into CNU at some point in the USAC tourney, but that's a team they beat by 30 at home and by 2 on the road.  It's obviously moot if OU wins the whole darned thing, but something that we should probably keep in mind.  Greensboro is PROBABLY a team that Oglethorpe ought to beat, but you never know if that game is played in North Carolina instead of at the Dorough Fieldhouse.

At the same time, can DePauw get back to at least #2 in the Great Lakes if they win the whole thing this weekend?  They've got the GREAT OWP, something that neither Thomas More nor Hope can claim.  Maybe 3 more region wins can be the difference.  Hope is probably going to roll to the MIAA crown because they're the only good team in it, so it doesn't look like the Tigers will get any favors there.  However, Thomas More is likely to run into the Presidents of Wash & Jeff, which is a team they split with during the regular season.  Going to be an interesting weekend.