Women's Basketball Southern Conference

Chattanooga Falls to Penn State 82-67 in Women's NCAA Basketball Championships

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Penn State All-America guard Kelly Mazzante scored 26
points as the Lady Lions turned back a valiant Chattanooga effort, 82-67, in
the first round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday night at PSU's Bryce Jordan
Center. Penn State advances to the Mideast Regional second round where it
will play Sun Belt Conference champ Florida International, a 73-58 winner
over Creighton in the earlier game.

UTC (23-8) went toe-to-toe with the Big 10 runner-up from the start and 15
first-half points by Damita Bullock put Chattanooga into the locker room
with a 44-39 cushion. Katie Galloway nailed a 3-pointer from deep in the
right corner as the shot clock expired and the game clock had less than
three seconds on it for an emotional lift at halftime.

UTC led 21-20 when Mazzante went to the bench with 9:24 to go in the first
half. The Lady Mocs outscored the Lady Lions 9-3 with Mazzante out and led
30-23 on two Tiffany Patton free throws at the 5:15 mark.

Chattanooga did not trail the rest of the half, but PSU clawed to within two
points in the final minute, until Galloway nailed the trey.

Penn State (22-11) turned up the defensive pressure to start the second half
and turned the game around with a 12-2 burst in the first three minutes to
lead 51-46. Chattanooga had six miscues in that span and the crowd of 6,698
was deafening at times.

"The adjustment they made in the second half, we didn't handle well," said
UTC coach Wes Moore. "We didn't do a good job recognizing what they did.
That five-minute stretch when we let Penn State get on a roll and take
control of the game was the key to the game."

The Lady Lions' spurt reached 26-10 covering 12 minutes as UTC hit just four
of its first 20 field goals in the second half. By that time it was a 65-54
deficit and UTC never recovered.

Chattanooga suffered a major blow when leading scorer Miranda Warfield went
down with a severe left knee sprain with 9:37 left in the game. Warfield
will have an MRI performed in the next few days to determine the actual
diagnosis.

In her absence, Heather McDivitt scored 14 points, canning a pair of
3-pointers. Bullock had just four points in the second half but still
finished with 19.

"I got open looks, but I just wasn't making shots I normally make in the
second half," said Bullock, who finished her Chattanooga career with 1,384
points, sixth all-time. "All the hype about my family blew over once the
plane landed. I didn't answer the phone and didn't want to talk to them. I
wanted to stay focused on the game."

Senior Heather Dykes scored four points, which was more than enough to push
her over the 1,000-point plateau for her sparkling career. She finished with
1,003, becoming the 15th member of UTC's 1,000-point club. Interestingly,
two UTC players (Bullock and Katarika Banks) eclipsed the 1,000 mark in last
year's NCAA game.

Chattanooga outrebounded the taller Lady Lions 38-37, but PSU held a
lopsided edge on free throws. The Lady Lions were 22-for-25 at the line
(19-for-21 in the second half), while UTC stepped to the line just 10 times
and made eight.

Penn State's Tanisha Wright scored 19 points and Jess Strom added 11 with
eight assists.

"We were hoping to hang around for the first 30 minutes of the game, and
with them being a higher seed and on their home court, maybe they'd start
feeling it a little bit," Moore said. "We couldn't get to that point. We
couldn't pull it off. They came out in the second half and took control of
the game."