By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The Missouri Western women's basketball team fell behind a couple of times in the first half, and after a back-and-forth start, it seemed the lead might change hands many times.
The Griffons (7-3, 2-1 MIAA) grabbed the lead back at 24-23 with 5:08 left in the second quarter off of a Brionna Budgets three-pointer, and Missouri Western never trailed again in a 68-65 win over No. 22 Nebraska-Kearney on Thursday night at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
The game remained a single-digit affair for the next 2.5 quarters, but the Griffons led by as many as nine on a couple of different occasions, and they held off a late push from UNK to score a key, early season win over the Lopers.
"I loved our defense," Missouri Western coach Candi Whitaker said. "We ran a lot of people in and out to try to be as up tempo as we could defensively and really fly around and play really hard and I thought we did that."
Missouri Western led 56-47 with 6:39 to play, and were still up 64-57 with 3:18 remaining. Nebraska-Kearney (9-2, 2-1 MIAA) then had a 6-0 run to pull within 64-63 with 1:08 to go.
With both teams in the double bonus, junior Connie Clarke got to the free throw line twice in the final minute, making three out of four attempts to put the Griffons up 67-63 with 11 seconds to go.
Kearney had one more look at a tying three with 0.6 seconds left, but Clarke blocked the attempt from Trinity Law.
Clarke was defended hard all night, but she still finished with seven points, five rebounds, three steals, two assists and a block.
"I can't say enough about Connie all year," Whitaker emphasized. "She wasn't necessarily there a ton tonight offensively, but my goodness she has now had three tight ball games where she has come up with a play defensively to ice the game for us and give us an opportunity to win it at the end."
Junior Jordan Cunningham led Missouri Western Thursday with 14 points and a career-high eight rebounds.
"After losing that tough game to (Missouri Southern Saturday 75-69), we really went back and really evaluated ourselves and what we did wrong and really flipped that switch tonight," Cunningham said. "It was almost the same case and we really showed that we can finish out games. I think that was a great step for us and a big improvement."
Budgets had 13 points for the Griffons, while freshman Cleao Murray scored 10. Junior Trinity Knapp had eight points and six rebounds in her second start of the season. Sophomore Alyssa Bonilla did big things off the bench, especially in the second half, and she finished with five points, three assists, two rebounds and two steals.
Law led UNK with 20 points on four made threes. Fifth-year senior Elisa Backes scored 17 points to go with five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
The win Thursday marked the first victory over Nebraska-Kearney at home for Missouri Western women's basketball since January 2017. It's the first regular season over UNK for Candi Whitaker, and it's also the second ranked team the Griffons have beat this season.
"I think tonight just shows how much we've improved just from the games we've already played," Cunningham said. "I think it's a huge win in general for (coach) Whitaker and for the team and I'm just really proud of everybody."
Missouri Western stays home to face (RV) Fort Hays State (6-3, 2-0 MIAA) on Saturday. Tip-off from the MWSU Fieldhouse is set for 1:30 p.m. Coverage starts at 1 on KFEQ Radio (680, 95.3).
Postgame interviews
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