SE Athletics
Matt Thomas
SEARCY, Ark. – Kentoya Woods came off the bench with 17 second-half points to spark Southeastern to a come-from-behind road victory over Harding on Saturday afternoon in Searcy, Ark.
Sports presented by Indian Nation Wholesale.
The win completes a sweep of the team’s first road-swing into Arkansas and lifts the Savage Storm to 5-7 overall and 3-3 in Great American Conference play.
“Its young ones growing up and stepping up,” said head coach Darin Grover, “And even some old ones stepping up.”
“She goes and scores 17 points in 21 minutes,” said Grover of Woods performance, “And she just comes up big. That’s the growth of those young players.”
“You take what they give you,” added Grover. “They were taking away the three. They have a big one in the paint that can protect the paint, so they pressured out to try to limit our threes. We drove it and got to the basket and got some easy baskets and then in the second half we hit free throws.”
Kamryn Cantwell turned in her second-straight 20-point outing, finishing with 20 exactly on 8-of-12 shooting and was just short of a double-double with a team-best nine rebounds. She also matched the team-high in assists with five.
Woods finished with 17 points on the contest, all those points coming in the second half, and she finished the outing shooting 6-of-8 with a pair of threes and went 3-lof-3 at the free throw line.
Briley Moon checked in with 14 points, with half her points coming on a 7-of-8 effort at the free throw line, while Chandler Kemp added 13 on 6-of-9 shooting.
Moon was right behind Cantwell with eight rebounds, while Kemp matched the team-high in assists with five.
Southeastern finished the day shooting 55.6 percent from the field overall, bolstered by a 66.7 second-half shooting effort.
The teams traded buckets over the first five minutes with Southeastern finally taking its first lead at 8-7 with 4:52 to go in the quarter on a Cantwell jumper.
However, HU would close out the first quarter on a 13-2 run to take a 20-10 lead after one frame.
The Storm opened the second quarter on a 6-0 run over the first 1:28, cutting the deficit to 20-16 after a pair of Moon free throws.
The Bisons would answer though with nine-straight points to push its advantage out to 29-16 by the 7:15 mark of the quarter.
A Jordan Benson layup would stop that run and kick off a 13-6 run over the next 4:23, with another pair of Moon free throws closing the gap to 35-29.
The teams would each tack on a pair of points and Southeastern would trail 37-31 at the half.
HU stretched the lead to nine points right out of the halftime break, but seven-straight Southeastern points would close the gap to 40-38 after a Moon three at the 7:31 mark.
Th teams would trade buckets until a Woods layup with 2:09 to go in the third would knot the game at 51-51.
The Bisons would push their lead back out to 55-51 with four-straight free throws, but the Storm would close the gap to 57-56 at the final quarter break.
After HU scored to open the fourth quarter, a Woods three would fall to tie the game again at 59-59.
HU would regain its lead on the next possession, but the Storm would answer with back-to-back buckets from Cantwell and Kemp to take a 63-61 lead at the 7:25 mark.
HU would again tie the game briefly at 63-63, but a 6-0 run triggered by a Haiden Williams bucket with Moon putting SE ahead 69-63 with 4:58 to play.
The Bisons would close the gap to 71-69 by the 2:46 mark, but a Woods three-point-play would end that run and push the advantage to 74-69.
Harding added a free throw and Woods would complete her second three-point-play with 1:20 to go and Southeastern would pull away on free throws down the stretch for an 84-75 win.