Westminster women hold off Thiel, 76-73

The Titans kept alive hopes of hosting a first-round tournament game.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- When Westminster visited Thiel for the final regular season meeting between the two teams, neither team had hopes of wrapping up a regular season title in the President's Athletic Conference.
The only things the two teams were playing for were pride and seeding position in the league championship tournament that begins next week.
When the issue was finally decided, the Titans (7-17, 4-7) kept their hopes of possibly hosting a first-round game alive as they downed the Tomcats, 76-73.
"That is the mindset we went into the game with," said Westminster coach Rosanne Scott. "With the way the games are on Saturday, I knew that if we could win this one, anything could happen. Before the game, I reminded the girls that if they could go out and win both of these last two games, we could end up hosting in the first round of the playoffs. That was our goal coming in here."
Thiel led early
Thiel (7-17, 6-5) opened fast as they raced out to a 10-4 lead in the opening four minutes. Westminster answered with a 7-2 run to take their first lead of the game at 11-10.
The rest of the half featured five ties and nine lead changes before the Titans scored the final six points of the half to take a 33-29 lead at halftime. For the half, the Titans held a 20-11 edge off the glass, while for the game, their advantage was 40-24.
"That was one thing I said to the girls at halftime was that we needed to keep crashing the boards in the second half," said Scott. "[Thiel] doesn't box out well and Talley [Felger] knows her role on the team is getting rebounds and she did a nice job of doing that tonight."
Thiel, already playing with a short bench of eight players, was further strapped when starters Nicole Valentino (Sharon), Heather Abate and Amber Bodrick (Mooney) all spent time on the bench with three fouls.
"[The foul situation] really hurt us, but the rest of the girls really stepped up and played hard," said Thiel coach Artina Trader. "When we were able to get those three back into the game, we were able to make our run, but it just wasn't enough."
Titans stretch lead
The Titans gradually stretched their lead to as many as 14 with seven minutes left in the game before holding off a late comeback.
During that stretch, Sterling (Newton Falls) scored eight straight points, her final bucket giving Westminster a 58-44 lead.
Sterling had 22 points, five rebounds and five assists. Rachel Eaton added 12 points and Terese Marszalek and Talley Felger each had 11. Felger also had 12 rebounds.
Bodrick led all scorers with 25 points. Abate had 15 and Fontella Jones (Farrell) added 10.