Lady Bears advance in conference tourney
PONCA — Laurel-Concord-Coleridge used a 44-40 win over Plainview in the opening round of the Lewis Division Tournament to advance to the semifinals Feb. 1 against the No. 1 seed in the tournament, Ponca in Ponca.
The Lewis & Clark Conference Tournament is split into two divisions with seeds 1-through-8 competing in the Lewis Division Tournament and seeds 9-through-15 playing in the Clark Division Tournament.
Earlier in the week, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge dropped a regular-season conference game to Wakefield 62-44.
The Lady Bears punched a ticket to the semifinals for the first time since the 2013-2014 season with the win over the Lady Pirates.
“This was a back-and-forth game but we played hard and well for 32 minutes,” LCC coach Marcus Messersmith said. “It was tight early but we settled in and got multiple steals and scores to get a lead.”
Plainview took a one-point lead into the intermission and increased the advantage to six points early in the third quarter.
The Lady Bears tightened the defense and turned defense into offense to tie the game and take the lead.
“We got it going pretty good and got up by 10 or 12 points with about two minutes left in the game,” Messersmith said. “Plainview came back from there but we held on.”
LCC turned the ball over and missed some shots while the Lady Pirates warmed up a little from beyond the 3-point line.
The lead dwindled to four with 2.5 seconds left and Plainview had the ball.
“We called timeout to make sure we understood to not foul and they cannot beat us,” Messersmith said. “We did a good job in executing that plan.”
Tali Erwin and Mallory Eriksen paced the Lady Bear offense with 16 and 14 points respectively.
Berniece McCorkindale tacked on 10 and Lainey Schutte chipped in four.
LCC traveled to Wakefield to take on the Lady Trojans but the Lady Bears got off to a slow start and trailed from early on.
“We got down by about 15 out of the gate,” Messersmith said. “We brought it back to within about eight multiple times but that’s as close as we got.”
Eriksen led the way again for the Lady Bears, pouring in 19 points, but also got good production from their post players.
Mollie Schutte had 10 points and McCorkindale had six.
“We showed a lot of fight in the game,” Messersmith said. “We just couldn’t put everything together to catch them.”
Laurel-Concord-Coleridge is set for the semifinal match up with the Lady Indians which will be played in Ponca Feb. 1 with tip off set for 6 p.m.
The Lady Indians are the top seed in the Lewis Division Tournament and have a 17-1 record.
The winner of the game will take on the winner of a game between Wynot and Wakefield which is also set for Ponca following the LCC/Ponca contest.
The finals of the tournament will be Feb. 6 at Rice Auditorium on the campus of Wayne State College. The championship is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m.
