WOMEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL Wolverines pull away from Thiel

Abby Moose scored 15 points for Grove City.
GROVE CITY -- For the first 16 minutes of Wednesday night's Presidents' Athletic Conference matchup between Grove City and Thiel, it was either team's game for the taking.
However, during the final four minutes of the opening half and much of the second, Grove City (9-8, 2-2) took control of the game, cruising to a 73-50 win over the Tomcats at the Wolvarena.
The Tomcats broke out to a fast start at 5-0, but the Wolverines came back to put together an 18-7 run to take an 18-12 lead 11 minutes into the game.
On the strength of eight points from Kristen Benjamin, Thiel (5-14, 1-3) came back to tie the score at 26-all with four minutes remaining in the opening half, before Grove City scored the final 13 points to take a 39-26 lead at halftime.
"At that point of the game, I knew we were going to win and it was just a matter of our being able to take care of the ball, taking good shots and playing hard on the defensive end of the floor," said Grove City coach Melissa Lamie.
Moose leads GCC
Leading the Grove City assault was Abby Moose (Mercer), who scored nine of her 11 first-half points over the final four minutes. Moose finished with a game-high 15 points.
"Abby didn't get going right away," said Lamie. "She was only 4-of-10 in the first half and I think all four of those were in the last six minutes of the half. "When she gets it going, that gives us a lot of momentum and with that, we were able to spread out the lead a little bit."
Leading by 13, the Wolverines stretched their margin to as many as 20 (48-28) five minutes into the second half.
The Tomcats came clawing back with a 12-2 run that cut their deficit to 50-40 midway through the period.
In control
Despite that, Lamie felt her team was always in control of the game.
"Just because I felt they weren't going to be able to score that easily," she said. "We struggled on the offensive end of the floor and gave up the ball on turnovers. That is how they did most of their scoring so as long as we could settle things down, take care of the ball and run some offense, I felt we would win the game."
The Wolverines got a lot of production from the bench and that brought a smile to Lamie's face. Leading that group was Brittany Anderson, who completed a double-double in 23 minutes -- 10 boards and 12 points.
"She came out and hit her first shot and from there on, she continued to go strong to the hoop," said Lamie.
For Thiel, Kristen Benjamin also had a double-double game in the loss, finishing with 15 points and 14 rebounds.
Rachel McCoy added 14 points for the Wolverines. Moose also played a strong floor game with eight steals and three assists.