Lady Roadrunners win battle of nationally ranked teams

Sedalia, M0.-The 17^th ranked State Fair Community College Lady Roadrunners women's basketball team opened their portion of the State Fair Community College Thanksgiving Classic with a 56-54 victory over 22^nd ranked Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College on Friday, Nov. 28 inside the Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Center. The victory was the 11^th in a row for SFCC.

NEO had a 15-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. Freshman guard Chloe Reed of Wentzville, Mo. scored the first 11 points of the contest for SFCC.

"Chloe was able to get to the rim," said Lady Roadrunners head coach Nicole Collier. "She knew that they were taking a three-point shot away and she found other ways to score. She is a versatile player, and we love that about her."

 SFCC (11-0) led the game 31-24 at halftime of the back-and-forth contest.

NEO went on a run to tie the game at 35 with less than seven minutes remaining in the third quarter. SFCC responded to take a 41-40 lead at the end of the quarter.

SFCC trailed 45-44 with seven minutes and nine seconds remaining in the contest. SFCC responded once again to take a 51-45 lead with four and 22 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter courtesy of a big three-point shot from sophomore forward Ellie Buscher of St. Louis, Mo.

Buscher made her second big three-point shot to put her team up 54-48 with less than two minutes remaining in the contest.

SFCC had a two-point lead at 56-54 with 8.5 seconds left in the game. The Lady Roadrunners did the job on the defensive end of the floor. NEO missed a shot that would have tied the game and SFCC came away with rebound to seal the victory.

"Northeastern Oklahoma A&M is an extremely well coached team said Collier. "We knew it was going to be a dogfight. They took away a lot of the things that we do well. We had to dig down and find some different options. Defense and rebounding won that game for us."

Reed led the team with 13 points to go along with a team-high seven steals. Sophomore guard Zoe Newland of St. Louis, Mo. added 12 points. Buscher contributed 12 points and finished her double-double with a team high 12 rebounds. Buscher also led the team in blocked shots with two. Sophomore guard Sophia Edwin of Killeen, Texas dished out a team-high five assists in the game.

David Rohrbach

SFCC Athletics