Ephs Hold Off Little 3 Rival Wesleyan, 73-68
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Junior guard Mika Peterman scored 12 of her 18 points in the second half and first-year Chessie Jackson also netted 18 points for the Ephs, who improved to 12-5 overall. Lucy Sprung scored a game-high 32 points in the loss for Wesleyan, which fell to 11-5 overall.
The Ephs will travel to Hartford, Conn., on Friday night for a conference battle with Trinity College. Tip off is 7:30 p.m.
Wesleyan led the entire first half and entered the locker room on a high note – and with a 34-30 lead - when sophomore Kiah McAndrew-Davis banked in a 35-foot prayer as time expired.
The Ephs did not take their first lead of the night until Peterman calmly drained a three-pointer with 16:30 remaining in the second half. Jackson followed 1:11 later with her own trey off a kickout from Eph senior point guard Niki Savageau.
From there the Ephs slowly took control of the game. Whereas Wesleyan gained an upper hand by dominating the boards and easily penetrating the Eph defense for point-blank lay-ups in the first half, the Williams defense tightened in the second half, especially on the glass.
More importantly, an Eph offense that looked stagnant and frustrated in the first half found a way to open things up in the second, resulting in them hitting 45.7 percent (16 for 35) of their shots from the floor.
Peterman upped the Williams lead to 10 with 10:58 remaining when she hit a running baseline jumper, then followed a three-pointer from Wesleyan’s Ali Fourney with a trey of her own with 9:27 left for a 55-45 advantage.
The Cardinals kept coming and cut the Eph lead to six twice in the closing minutes on two foul shots from Sprung and a jumper from Fourney, who finished with 10 points. But Eph first-year Jessica Harris drained a huge 18-foot jumper from the right corner with 2:24 left, and the Ephs went 8 of 10 from the foul line in the closing seconds to seal the win.
