BY RANDY PAYTON
Rio Grande Sports Information
RIO GRANDE, Ohio - Tuesday night's River States Conference Women's Basketball Championship final was everything you would've expected from the two teams who spent the course of the regular season schedule battling for league supremacy.
Namely, a showdown which featured 10 ties, 11 lead changes and a dramatic final minute finish.
Top-seeded Rio Grande coughed up a 12-point lead with just under four minutes left to play, but climbed off the mat by scoring seven of the game's final nine points for a 95-90 victory over No. 2 seed Oakland City University at a lively Newt Oliver Arena.
The RedStorm, ranked No. 21 in the final regular season NAIA coaches' Top 25 poll, pushed its record to 26-5 with the win - its 41st straight home victory over a conference foe.
Head coach David Smalley's squad, which was making its fourth straight title game appearance, has now won both the regular season and conference tournament championships for each of the last three seasons.
Oakland City, which was among the teams receiving votes in the final coaches' poll, had its 11-game winning streak snapped and dropped to 23-7.
Prior to Tuesday night's setback, the Mighty Oaks' last loss came in its regular season meeting on January 20 in Rio Grande.
Both teams will represent the RSC in the upcoming NAIA Women's Basketball Championship - Rio Grande via its championship sweep and the Mighty Oaks as the tournament runner-up - beginning March 15 at 16 First Round sites across the country.
Pairings will be announced on Thursday night.
Rio Grande opened up an eight-point lead with just under 7-1/2 minutes left in the opening half, but trailed 44-43 at the intermission.
The RedStorm rebounded though, closing the third quarter with a 7-1 run to take a 68-63 advantage into the final stanza.
The RedStorm methodically extended their cushion to 85-73 after a bucket by junior Harlei Antritt (Newark, OH) with 3:51 remaining, but Oakland City mounted its own comeback effort with a 15-3 run over the next 2-1/2 minutes and knotted the score at 88-all on a running jumper by Gabrielle Joyner with 1:17 left to play.
Antritt connected on a pair of free throws with 57.4 seconds remaining to give Rio a lead it would never relinquish and the RedStorm went 7-for-8 at the foul line inside the final minute to nail down the win.
Junior Kaylee Darnell (Wheelersburg, OH) led six Rio Grande players with 18 points and a game-best seven assists, while Antritt and senior Reagan Willingham (Ashville, OH) scored 15 points apiece.
Senior Aleea Crites (Parkersburg, WV) had 14 points and a pair of blocked shots in the winning effort, while junior Lexi Woods (Waverly, OH) netted 11 points and pulled down a team-best nine rebounds. All of Woods' points and all but one of her rebounds came in the second half.
Senior Lavender Ward (Charleston, WV) completed the RedStorm's corps of double-digit scorers with 10 points.
Rio Grande shot the ball well, connecting on 33 of its 68 shots overall (48.5%) and 21 of its 27 free throw attempt (77.8%).
The RedStorm survived 23 turnovers and a 46-37 rebounding deficit.
Oakland City was 36-for-76 overall (47.4%), but hurt its own cause by going 2-for-13 from three-point range (15.4%), 16-for-25 at the foul line (64.0%) and committing 24 turnovers.
Jayla Dowell scored a season- and career-high 29 points to go along with a game-best 12 rebounds in a losing cause for the Mighty Oaks.
Kyrisha Hay added 17 points and four steals for OCU, while Erin Whitehead had 16 points and Monesjia Harvey finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
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