By Jay Neal
sports@jacksonvilleprogress.com
The old adage “what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger” fittingly describes the Jacksonville College Lady Jaguars’ situation Wednesday night.
After playing several top -20 teams early on and losing to those powers, the Lady Jags bowed up and refused to be denied victory by edging Blinn College, 72-71, in a Region XIV tilt played at the Curtis Carroll Fieldhouse.
Trailing by as many as eight points with about nine minutes to play in the game, the JC ladies continued to battle, eventually knotting the score at 67 when Amanda Mangan made good on a shot off the window at the 2:40 mark. Credit Jamie Johnson with an assist on the play, one of a handful of serve-ups for the sophomore point guard.
JC (5-5, 1-1 in Region XIV) then took the lead on a free throw by Tiesha Martin that came with 1:59 to play. Martin’s shot came on the second of two free throw tries with Blinn (5-6, 0-2) knocking the ball out of bounds on the fight for the rebound after Martin’s miss on the second shot.
Martin was then fouled again on the inbound play and went to the stripe and made good on both shots, putting the Lady Jags in front 70-67. The Lady Bucs refused to give in, getting back-to-back baskets from Roshell Barnes and Jaleesa Thomas to move in front of the Lady Jags, 71-70, with 59 seconds to go in the affair.
Blinn had a chance to take the lead when Precious Herrin fouled Barnes at the 32-second point, but Barnes’ attempt on the first of a one-and-one was off the mark with Rayvin Miller getting the rebound for JC.
Miller logged a double-double on the night, scoring 19 points and pulling down 10 rebounds. In JC’s subsequent possession, Martin was able to connect on a 14-foot jumper from the paint that bumped the JC ladies to a 72-71 lead with 12 ticks remaining. Blinn was then unable to get the ball inbounded — a Lady Buc turnover occurred near half court with four seconds to play — with JC gaining possession, which sealed the deal for the Lady Jaguars.
The game opened with Blinn going on a 12-0 spurt to start things off, but JC countered with a 14-2 run to play themselves back into the game.
After the respective runs, the teams slugged it out on even terms the rest of the game until JC bowed up in the closing seconds to nail down the victory.
JC led 35-34 at the break with each unit putting 37 points on the board in the final half. Johnson also pumped in 19 points for the Lady Jags while Martin added 10 as well as six boards.
Thomas was the top point-getter for Blinn with 19, including three buckets from beyond the arc. LaChandra Johnson came in off the bench and chipped in with 15 for the Lady Bucs.
Blinn got outstanding play from its reserves as the bench players scored 22 points for the Lady Bucs. JC’s bench mustered just 10 points on the night.
JC head coach Lynn Nabi stated after the game that the experiences the team encountered in its losses to ranked teams earlier in the season had a positive effect on the Lady Jags on Wednesday.
“The win came down to the fact we’ve been in tough situations the entire year,” he said. “Our five losses have been against top-20 teams and my team learned from those games and got tough out there late tonight (Wednesday).
“We ran our offense, played our defense and stuck to our game plan and those are the things you have to do to win. The tough stuff we have been through this year got us over the edge tonight.”
Nabi continued by saying his team did not want to start Region XIV play at 0-2 and that he now believes this year’s squad may actually be hitting its stride faster than his team did in 2008-09.
“This was a game we had to pretty much win. We didn’t want to open conference at 0-2,” he said. “I’m sensing this year’s team is a little bit farther along then we were last year.”
The Lady Jags will return to league action at 2 p.m. Saturday when they travel to Tyler Junior College.
