Making A Big Deal

Published 5:41 am Tuesday, February 2, 2010

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A big game called for the St. Joseph Lady Fighting Irish to go big.

Led by scoring and rebounding of 5-foot-11 Sara Sang and 6-2 Brooke Keeton, the Lady Irish beat the South Point Lady Pointers 61-56 in the Gold Division championship game of the St. Joe Invitational Monday at Memorial Field House.

The game was originally scheduled for Saturday but was moved due to the snow.

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Sang did most of the damage with a game-high 28 points that earned her the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.

“They’ve got a lot of size and it caused us some match up problems. They kept getting the ball inside,” said South Point coach Dave Adams.

South Point (14-2) led 8-7 at the end of the first quarter and 26-21 at the half. The Lady Pointers’ biggest lead was 20-10 midway through the second quarter.

Leading 43-40 at the end of the third quarter, South Point was up 47-46 on a basket by Tinesha Taylor with 4:28 to play.

But the Lady Irish went on a 10-0 run to take a 56-47 lead. Kiki Smith scored 12 of her 16 points in the fourth quarter including 8-of-8 at the line with four coming down the stretch to clinch the win.

“We led throughout the game until the fourth quarter,” said Adams. “But we missed a couple of easy shots and then we had a steal and didn’t finish and they went down and scored. We had our opportunities.”

Kayla Fletcher led South Point with 23 points. The total included six 3-point goals.

Jalynn Bradburn scored 11 points — all in the second half — while Tinesha Taylor added 9 points.

“Tinesha really battled against their big girls. It was a good game for us to play,” said Adams.

Fletcher and Allison Mitchell were named to the all-tournament team for the Lady Pointers. Sang was selected the Most Valuable Player.

Dusti Chapman and Smith were all-tournament for the Irish.

South Point 8 18 17 13 = 56

St. Joseph 7 14 19 21 = 61

SOUTH POINT (14-2): Allison Mitchell 4 0 0-0 8, Kayla Fletcher 2 6 1-2 23, Ashley Goodall 1 1 0-0 5, Jalynn Bradburn 5 0 1-1 11, Tinesha Taylor 4 0 1-3 9, Erin Dillow 0 0 0-0 0. Totals: 16 7 3-6 56. Fouls: 14. Fouled out: None.

HUNT. ST. JOSEPH (12-3): Dusti Chapman 1 0 1-3 3, Kiki Smith 4 0 8-10 16, Sara Sang 12 0 4-6 28, Amber Chadwick 1 0 0-0 2, Brooke Keeton 1 0 0-0 2, Stephanie Dorsey 2 2 0-0 10. Totals: 21 2 13-19 61. Fouls: 12. Fouled out: None.