Box Score
HOUGHTON, Mich. - Top seed Michigan Tech thwarted a late Lady Panthers' run with a 15-0 spurt of its own late in the second half, pulling away for an 84-68 victory over third-seeded Drury in the NCAA-II MIdwest Region title game before 3,131 fans at the SDC Gym here Tuesday night.
The Huskies (31-2), ranked third nationally, will advance to the NCAA-II Elite Eight for a second straight year next week in St. Joseph, Mo. Drury, making its eighth straight NCAA-II Tournament appearance and fifth visit to a regional final, saw its 10-game winning streak snapped as the Lady Panthers finished 28-7.
Michigan Tech shot a blistering 65 percent (30 of 46) from the field for the game and held the Lady Panthers, the nation's leader in FG percentage on the season, to 43 percent shooting (26 of 61).
Danae Danen, a 6-0 senior, scored a career-high 30 points - hitting 13 of 17 shots - and added 12 rebounds and five blocked shots to lead the Huskies, who returned all five starters from an Elite Eight team of a year ago.
Danen, who averaged 12 points per game coming into the contest, scored 16 points in the first half as the Huskies pulled away late in the half to lead 42-32 at the break. The Lady Panthers came out of the locker room with a 9-2 run to cut it to three (44-41) with 16:25 left on a Lindsay Ballweg jumper, but Tech answered with a pair of free throws and a confounding, NBA continuation-like 3-point play from Katie Wysocky after a Caitlin Shouse foul to push it back to eight (49-41) with 15 minutes left.
Still, Drury wasn't done. Down 14 (57-43) with 11:30 remaining, the Lady Panthers battled back, and when junior guard Ja'Nell Jones scored and was fouled on a drive and followed with the free throw, it was a 63-59 game with just over eight minutes to go.
That's when Tech came up with the killer surge, a 15-0 run over the next four minutes off a combination of 3-pointers from the guards and point-blank buckets by Wysocky and Danen to go up 78-59 with just over four minutes remaining, much to the delight of the largest home crowd ever to watch a Tech women's game.
"I think the big difference was every time we made a run, they answered with one," Drury coach Steve Harold said. "We just couldn't get them stopped. When you shoot 65 percent from the field and you hold the opponent to 42 percent, you're going to win the ballgame. I'm disappointed, but I'm proud of the way we kept fighting back. This was a phenomenal atmosphere tonight, and that's a darn good (Michigan Tech) basketball team."
Ballweg and Katie Pritchard finished with 16 points each and Melanie Oliver and Caitlin Shouse added 12 points apiece for the Lady Panthers, who outrebounded the Huskies 29-26 in the contest, but were beaten 17-12 on the boards in the second half. Oliver led Drury with 10 rebounds for her school-record 27th double-double of her three-year Drury career.
Wysocky finished with 19 points, including 13 in the second half, and Katie Zimmerman added 18 points (including 5 of 7 shooting from 3-point range) for the Huskies.
Ballweg and Pritchard were named to the Midwest Region All-Tournament team along with Tech's Wysocky, Sarah Stream and Danen, who was named the Most Outstanding Player.
For Drury, it capped a memorable season in which the Lady Panthers won 15 of their final 17 games despite being ignored in the national Top 25 for the entire last half of the season. But for Harold, it was special for more personal reasons.
"This group was special," Harold said of a Lady Panthers squad featuring seniors Ballweg, Oliver, Shouse and Sarah Tipton. "I've had more fun coaching this team than I've had in a long time."
It's a group that most definitely left its mark on the DU record books in the end as well.
*Ballweg finished with 1,502 points in her three seasons at Drury, fifth-most in Lady Panthers history, and set a single-season scoring record with her 644 points this season as well as her 112 made 3-pointers. She finished second on DU's all-time 3-pointer list with 194 in her career.
*Oliver leaves as Drury's greatest rebounder in school history, holding the DU rebounding records for single game (22), single-season (311 this season) and career (812) in addition to winding up eighth on the all-time scoring charts with 1,169 points in just three seasons.
*Jones set a DU mark for single-season assists with 167 and is fourth on the all-time list with 307 entering her senior campaign next winter.
*Shouse wound up just shy of reaching the 1,000-point mark for her four-year DU career, finishing with 974 points to go with 639 rebounds, the fourth-most in the program's history.
*And the sophomore Pritchard finished the season with 114 assists, the seventh-most in a DU single-season, and 93 3-pointers, second only to Ballweg's 112 in a DU season.