Women’s Basketball: Jackets overcome halftime deficit to upset Saint Vincent
By John Lydic
Editorial Assistant
What a difference 20 minutes can make.
A rejuvenated second half effort allowed Waynesburg to erase a 17-point halftime deficit to keep its home playoff dreams alive Wednesday evening inside the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse.
The Yellow Jackets (13-11, 11-6) defeated Saint Vincent (17-7, 14-3) 79-77 to keep their chances of hosting a Presidents’ Athletic Conference Tournament home game Tuesday.
Despite the outcome of the game, the first half was one to forget for Waynesburg.
“They got the momentum, and they got the energy,” said junior guard Hayden Giuliani. “We’re a team that feeds off energy. If we don’t have the stops we need on defense, it carries over to our offense. They hit a lot of shots and we gave them a lot of open threes.”
Waynesburg trailed 51-34 at halftime after shooting 32 percent and was two-for-11 from behind the 3-point line.
The Yellow Jackets seemed to be down and out, considering Waynesburg blew a 17-point halftime lead in Saturday’s 77-76 lost to Westminster.
Waynesburg head coach Sam Jones’ message to his team in the second half was to just give it their all.
“He just wanted us to care, and show heart,” said Giuliani. “The first half, they definitely showed they wanted it more than we did. We came out and proved ourselves. We had the heart and we were better than them.”
Waynesburg started the second half on a 21-0 run to erase the first half deficit and take a 55-53 lead.
Giuliani hit four 3-pointers during the run, along with Rebecca Kerr’s second 3-point field goal of the season.
“They’re very aggressive, which is why they got out to a lead in the first half,” said Giuliani. “We used that to get them out of position and we broke the press a lot better. We worked inside and outside and hit our shots [in the second half].”
The two teams exchanged the lead four times over the last five minutes, until Waynesburg took a 78-77 lead with a little over a minute to play thanks to sophomore Lauren Blair, who hit a step-back 3-pointer. Giuliani then added a free throw to extend the lead to two.
With, four seconds left, Saint Vincent head coach Jimmy Petruska elected to call a timeout. Waynesburg came to the bench with last Saturday’s game still haunting it.
“We were all kind of replaying in our head what happened Saturday,” said Giuliani. “We knew that we’re not going to let that happen again, and all we need was one stop; to buckle down and give everything you have.”
Elaine Hasek intercepted the inbound pass by Jessica Welsh and Waynesburg took over possession as time expired.
The Jackets still have an outside shot of hosting a first round PAC Tournament game. Waynesburg will need Westminster to lose Saturday to Geneva, while the Jackets will have to take care of business on the road against Chatham. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m., with WCYJ-FM providing coverage.