CASTLETON, Vt. – The Castleton University women's basketball team overcame an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit to claim a 71-61 overtime win on Wednesday night in Little East Conference action against UMass Boston.
It was the second game in a row that Castleton came out on top after trailing by eight points entering the final 10 minutes of regulation. The Spartans trailed RPI 43-35 entering the fourth quarter on Saturday before defeating the Engineers 55-53.
Elise Magro made a three with 20 seconds to play to pull Castleton within two points before UMass Boston hit 1-of-2 free throws on the other end to hold a three-point cushion with 15 seconds to play. Castleton called timeout to advance the ball after controlling the rebound, and drew up a play for the game-tying shot.
Gwyn Tatton curled around to the top of the arc and buried a three with just five seconds left, tying the game at 55-55 and forcing overtime.
The Spartans came out firing in overtime, with Magro hitting a three on the opening possession. After UMass Boston came up empty on its first possession of OT,
Kelly Vuz knocked down a corner three for a six-point Castleton lead less than a minute into the five-minute extra frame. Castleton didn't hit another field goal from that point, but drained 10 free throws in overtime to help seal the double-digit victory. The Spartans improve to 9-3 on the season and 2-1 in LEC play, while UMass Boston falls to 7-7 and 0-4 in league action.
UMass Boston raced out to a 14-4 lead in the first quarter after an 11-0 run that saw Castleton go scoreless for nearly five minutes. Magro broke the stretch with a free throw and added two more on the next possession to make it 14-7. A late three gave the Beacons a 17-7 lead but
Felicia Poirier gave Castleton two more points with free throws late in the frame to end the first quarter 17-9.
Both offenses struggled in the second quarter, each only scoring 10 points in the frame. UMass Boston scored the first four points of the frame with a free throw and a three before Castleton answered with a
Liz Bailey free throw and a Magro jumper. After a Beacon layup, Magro hit a triple to make it 23-15 but UMass Boston nailed two unanswered jumpers to take a 27-15 lead, its largest margin of the half. Castleton scored the last four points of the stanza with two free throws by Bailey and a late layup by Vuz to go into halftime trailing 27-19.
Castleton scored the first four points of the second half on baskets from Magro and Tatton, but the Beacons matched them to stay ahead by eight at the midway mark of the third quarter. The lead stretched to 10 after a two layups by the Beacons' Sunny Green, 35-25, but a three by Vuz and a Magro layup halved the lead back to five with two minutes to play in the quarter. Green and Paige Ollivierre made two unanswered layups to push the lead back to nine, but Vuz hit a free throw near the end of the third to make it an eight-point game going into the final 10 minutes, 39-31.
The Spartans opened the fourth quarter on a 6-0 run with Tatton netting a layup,
Delaney Whitehead hitting a free throw and Vuz knocking down a triple. Meg Dixon snapped the streak for UMass Boston with a jumper, but Vuz matched it with a pair of free throws to make it 41-39 in favor of the Beacons. UMass Boston remained in foul trouble throughout the quarter, sending Castleton to the line 13 times with the Spartans hitting 11 of them. The last free throws the Spartans hit in regulation were connected on by Magro, who made the score 51-49 Beacons with just one minute to play. A three-point stretch by UMass Boston had Castleton trailing by five points with less than 30 seconds left, but Magro hit a three with 20 seconds showing before Tatton's final-seconds heroics forced overtime and led to the Spartans' victory.
Magro led all players with 29 points in the win, playing all 45 minutes in the contest and dishing out four assists with four rebounds. Vuz had 22 points—20 of which came after halftime—and amassed five steals and five rebounds. Bailey came up one point shy of a double-double, pouring in nine points with a game-high 14 rebounds. Tatton had seven points—none bigger than her game-tying three—in addition to 10 rebounds on the night.
UMass Boston was led by Keriann Farina's 17 points and Alexah Potter's 11 rebounds. Sunny Green added 12 points while the Beacons' leading scorer and rebounder Meg Dixon was limited to nine points and nine rebounds. Potter also added six blocks on defense for UMass Boston.
The Spartans struggled from the floor, shooting just 24.6 percent on the night, but made up for it by hitting seven threes and making 30 free throws—the most in a single game by any Spartan team in at least the last 20 seasons. The Spartans also matched a season-high with 54 rebounds in the game.
Castleton returns to action on Saturday with a home tilt against Eastern Connecticut State at 1 p.m. in Glenbrook Gym.
