DAHLONEGA, Ga. – First-seeded and No. 24 North Georgia limited the UNC Pembroke women's basketball team to its lowest point total of the season and held off the eighth-seeded Braves 58-49 in the quarterfinal round of the Peach Belt Conference (PBC) tournament on Wednesday evening at the UNG Convocation Center.
The Braves campaign comes to a close in the PBC Quarterfinals for a second-consecutive season after making back-to-back appearances in the league tourney for the first time since the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. PBC regular season champion and No. 1-seed North Georgia advances to the league semifinals where they will take on fifth-seeded Georgia College who was a 62-53 road victor against Flagler on Wednesday.
Senior
Nyla Allen paced the Braves with 12 points in her final game in a Black & Gold uniform, while fellow senior
Ebone Stevens chipped in 11, including a trio of 3-pointers. Stevens also grabbed a career-high eight rebounds, as did junior
Alecia Hardy. Sophomore
Avery Locklear chipped in eight points for the Braves, whose previous low point total this season was 50 on a pair of occasions.
Julianne Sutton scored a game-best 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting for the Nighthawks, who racked up eight blocks (four from Sutton). Julie McKie added 12 points and Abbie Franklin chipped in 11, while Deana Blankinship hauled in a team-high eight rebounds.
UNCP outscored North Georgia 15-9 in the third quarter to whittle the Nighthawk lead down to 10 with one quarter to play. The Braves pulled within seven to trail 49-42 with just over five minutes to play in fourth and maintained that deficit until the hosts used a 5-0 run to extend the lead back to 12 with under 3:30 to play. Senior
Kasey Drayton buried a 3-pointer with 26 ticks on the clock, but it was too little too late as North Georgia held on for the 58-49 triumph.
It took over two minutes for either team to break onto the scoreboard in the first quarter before a Nighthawk 3-pointer at the 7:53 mark erased the scoreless tie. With North Georgia up 7-5 and just under six minutes to play, UNCP rattled off a 7-0 run to take a 12-7 lead, but the hosts responded with a 14-0 run in the final 3:10 to lead 21-12 after the first. The Braves pulled within seven at the 8:50 mark of the second period and trailed 28-20 with under three minutes to play in the half before the Nighthawks closed the stanza with an 8-0 run to haul a 36-20 lead into the locker rooms.
