Women's Basketball Southern Conference

South Carolina Trips Lady Mocs In NCAA Tournament

STATE COLLEGE, Penn. - For the third consecutive season, the Chattanooga
Lady Mocs played toe-to-toe with a higher seeded team in the NCAA
Tournament, but UTC did not have quite enough fire power once again and
dropped a 68-54 decision Sunday afternoon to 16th-ranked South Carolina in
the Mideast Regional.

Chattanooga had a lengthy scoring drought in each half at roughly the same
time, but otherwise the Lady Mocs held the upper hand against the highly
touted Gamecocks. USC's two scoring runs totaled 25-0 over about 11 minutes
midway within each half.

South Carolina, which advanced to the Elite Eight in 2002, will play host
Penn State Tuesday night.

"I am so proud of this team," said UTC coach Wes Moore. "To play a team as
strong as South Carolina is, you've got to be hitting on all cylinders. In
the second half we hit a stretch where we missed some free throws, made
some turnovers and didn't knock down open looks."

Sunday's game was televised by ESPN2, but the Lady Mocs showed no jitters
under the bright lights and surged to a 12-5 lead in the first five minutes
as Miranda Warfield heated up. Warfield scored half of Chattanooga's first
16 points and got support from the entire cast of Lady Mocs.

Chattanooga's first drought came at the 9:45 mark of the first half, and
South Carolina reeled off 12 consecutive points to take a four-point
deficit to a 30-22 advantage with 6:01 left. The Gamecocks' "big" lineup,
which had a pair of 6-foot-4 post players on the defensive perimeter,
caused Chattanooga some difficulty.

UTC finally solved the dilemma and responded with an 8-2 run, including
back-to-back layups by Tiffany Patton, which pulled the Lady Mocs within a
bucket. It remained anyone's game at halftime when South Carolina held a
35-32 lead at the break.

The Lady Mocs evened things at the start of the second half on Nneka Irons'
trifecta 32 seconds into the final 20 minutes. It was tied again at 37-all,
before USC scored five straight points for a 42-37 lead with its "big"
lineup in.

The Gamecocks were forced to utilize towers Petra Ujhelyi and Olga
Gritsaeva on the floor because point guard Cristina Ciocan was beset with
foul trouble. Chattanooga found the range against the taller Gamecocks and
went on a 12-6 scoring spree and forged a 49-
48 lead in Katie Galloway's triple with 9:45 to play.

By then, Ciocan was back in the game with four fouls and she played the
remainder of the game without being disqualified. She keyed South
Carolina's 13-0 run over the next six-plus minutes with four huge buckets.

"Ciocan is a great player with excellent size (5-foot-11) for a point
guard," Moore said. "She's so critical to their team. We had what we
wanted, but that's why they did what they wanted with her out there."

By the time Chattanooga stopped the bleeding, USC had taken a 61-49
cushion. Warfield's jumper with 2:56 left finally ended the drought. The
Lady Mocs made a brief charge with jumper by Jennifer Wilson, which pulled
UTC within 61-53 with 2:35 left. USC's Jocelyn Penn got loose for a layup,
which essentially sealed the game.

Warfield finished with 18 points and Patton 10, but it was ineffective
shooting and rebounding which dashed UTC's hopes for the Southern
Conference's first NCAA victory.

Chattanooga held South Carolina to just 39.3 percent shooting, but the Lady
Mocs suffered through a 35.0-percent outing (29.0 percent in the second
half). UTC went just 4-for-20 on 3-pointers. South Carolina dominated the
boards 47-31, which was UTC's worst deficit on the glass all season.

Ciocan, who tallied 18 points in just 21 minutes, led South Carolina. Penn,
a consensus All-American, finished with 15 points and nine boards. Sarah
Burgess scored 12 points and Ujhelyi, the SEC's leading rebounder, grabbed
14 caroms.

"We did a lot of things we wanted to do," Moore said. "Transition is a lot
of their offense and we did a decent job of defending that. They hurt us
some on the boards. Because of their size, they were till able to come up
with rebounds. We had our chances, but moral victories get old after a while."