The women's basketball program at Shawnee State overcame adversity successfully in a nonconference contest against Washington Adventist (Md.) on Friday afternoon as the Bears, who held a slim 33-28 advantage after the opening half of action, blew the neutral-site game between the duo wide-open.
Bailey Cummins scored 18 of her 20 points in the second half and added in seven assists for the game as a whole, while Brandie Snow's 17 points and four rebounds and Marnae Holland's 13 tallies allowed the Bears to claim an 83-57 victory over the Shock to move to 6-0 on the 2019-20 season in the Lindsey Wilson Classic, which was held at Biggers Sports Center in Columbia, Ky.
Shawnee State, who maintained its five-point first-half advantage despite shooting just 13-of-40 from the floor (32.9 percent) compared to Washington Adventist's 9-of-22 (40 percent), kept their lead by winning the rebounding battle by 11, 47-36, over the course of the game while going through Holland offensively during the opening half. The Bears then outscored the Shock by a 50-29 margin in the second half of competition to take control of the nonconference bout for good as SSU shot 18-of-39 from the floor (46.2 percent) while holding Washington Adventist to a 10-of-28 mark (35.7 percent) from the field.
Over the contest's first six minutes of competition, Holland and Snow were seemingly untouchable.
The latter found the former for the first of Holland's three connections from long distance just 16 seconds into the contest, and Snow scored in transition off of two Washington Adventist turnovers as the Bears took a 7-0 lead over the Shock just a minute and 29 seconds into the contest itself. Holland and Snow went on to combine for each of Shawnee State's first 17 points as Holland canned two additional treys while Snow scored off of a Bailey Cummins steal and find in transition to give SSU a 17-5 lead with 4:25 to play in the opening quarter, and the Bears built onto that lead en route to a 23-8 advantage after the opening quarter of competition.
In the second frame, however, Shawnee State found the going tougher. From the 1:23 mark of the opening quarter to the 4:04 mark of the second stanza, the Bears only converted two field goal attempts -- both from freshman forward Alex Ochman -- as Washington Adventist closed the gap. However, Holland and Snow answered with a field goal apiece in a 27-second span, and Cummins knocked down a pair of free throws to keep Shawnee State ahead as the Bears took a 33-28 lead into the halftime break.
The Shock, unrelenting initially in their effort, cut the Bears' deficit down to a 39-36 margin with 5:48 to play in the third frame, but a three from Snow and two additional free throws from Cummins allowed Shawnee State to keep the lead. When Carson Roney scored in the low post off of a feed from Cummins, Shawnee State used the breathing-room bucket to create momentum as the Bears started an 11-0 run that featured four points from Roney and Cummins and another trey from Snow as Shawnee State pushed its advantage to a 50-36 margin.
Washington Adventist cut the margin to 50-41 on a bucket from Anastasia Allen and a trey from Chynna Smith, but Abbie Kallner answered back with a three of her own to push Shawnee State's lead back to double-digits for good as the Bears took a 58-43 lead after the horn signified the end of the third stanza. Shawnee State then proceeded to run away with the contest from that point, as Cummins scored nine of her 20 points in the fourth quarter while Kallner added in her second three-pointer of the second half, and third of the game, to build the SSU lead to 83-54 before the Bears subbed freely to end the contest.
For the affair, Cummins' 20 points and seven assists were team-highs, with the senior accumulating those stats, once again, on strong efficiency by shooting 6-of-14 from the field and committing just two turnovers for the contest to collect a 3.5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Cummins also was a pest defensively, as her four steals indicated, and went a perfect 7-of-7 from the charity stripe to increase her season free throw mark to a stellar 18-of-18 from the foul line.
Snow, who put together her 17 points and four rebounds on 7-of-12 shooting from the field, was, unsurprisingly, the game's leader in steals with five to her credit, and now has 37 steals to her credit on the season for a remarkable average of 6.17 steals per bout through six games. The sophomore helped force 20 steals on the evening and created 32 Washington Adventist turnovers in comparison to Shawnee State's 16.
Holland, who scored all 13 of her points in the first half on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from deep, along with Kallner's nine points, five rebounds, and two steals, along with Roney's eight points and two steals, Sydney King's 10 rebounds, and two steals each from Anyia Pride and Hagen Schaefer, were all critical numbers in the win.
With the victory, Shawnee State will turn its attention to a primo matchup against No. 13 Talladega (Ala.) in a battle between two NAIA Division I Top 25 programs. That contest will be held on the campus of Waller Gymnasium on Monday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m.
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