BOX SCORE
(BOWIE, Md.) It was Senior Day for the Lady Bulldogs and Bowie State ended the regular season with a 61-56 divisional win over the Virginia Union Lady Panthers. Bowie State will go into next weeks CIAA Tournament as the overall number two seed with a record of 16-7, 15-5 in the CIAA and 5-3 in the East.
In a low scoring first half, Virginia Union University made just 6-of-24 field goals (25 percent), three of which were 3-pointers. Virginia Union’s Lavonna Spencer led all first scorers with eight points.
Bowie State was only slightly better than its conference foe, making 8-of-30 from the field (27 percent) and jacked up 17 first half 3-point attempts, sticking only two. Two positive notes for Bowie State in the first 20 minutes, was the Lady Bulldogs ability to control of the glass, outrebounding VUU’s Lady Panthers 25-15 and taking a 22-19 lead into halftime.
The BSU Lady Bulldogs led the entire second half even though Virginia Union pulled within one point twice. CIAA Player of the Year Tonaye Smith converted two free throws very early in the second period to make the score 22-21. Bowie State responded with a 10-2, extending their lead to 32-23 with 14:47 left to play.
Virginia Union fired back and went on an 11-3 run to close the gap to one again, this time at 35-34 by the 11:03 mark. Following a 30 second timeout, Bowie State senior
Bianca Lee (Temple Hills, MD, Archbishop Carroll) drilled a 3-pointer to start an 11-2 run that gave the Lady Bulldogs their largest lead of the game at 46-36.
It may come as a surprise, but Virginia Union had one more run left in them. This time the Lady Panthers outscored Bowie State 10-0 and trailed 46-45 with 4:55 left to play. However, that’s as close as Virginia Union would get and wrap up the regular season with a record 7-18 overall record, 2-18 in the CIAA and 1-7 in the Eastern Division.
Smith led Virginia Union with a double-double, 18 points and 10 rebounds and Sabrina Treakle chipped in 17 points in the loss.
Sophomore
Juliette Turner (Silver Spring, MD, John F. Kennedy) led Bowie State with a career-high 17 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds. Lee and junior
Brittne Gowdy (Baltimore, MD, Milford Mill Academy) added 16 and 10 points respectively for BSU’s Lady Bulldogs. Virginia Union (7-18, 2-18 CIAA, 1-7 East) was led by Tonaye Smith with a game-high 18 points to go along with 10 rebounds.
Bowie State receives one of four first round byes and will not see their first tournament action until Thursday (2/25) against the number seven / 10 winner at a time to be determined.