TOLEDO, Ohio - Behind Casey Garrison's 32 points, the Missouri State Lady Bears held off a furious second-half rally by home-standing Toledo to notch a 73-69 win over the Rockets in a Preseason WNIT consolation game at Savage Arena Saturday. Garrison scored 17 straight points for MSU late in the game to help the Lady Bears snap Toledo's 14-game home win streak.
With the score tied at 53-53, Garrison's jumper with 8:00 left on the clock started the game-deciding run for MSU, in which the junior guard personally outscored the Rockets 14-5. Her three-pointer one minute later gave the Lady Bears a five-point cushion and she would connect from long range again with 3:53 to play to make it a 65-58 ball game. Garrison finished her offensive flurry with five free throws in six attempts in the final 4:40 of the contest to erase any doubt about the outcome.
The victory for the Lady Bears (2-1) was very much in doubt in the moments leading up to Garrison's outburst, however. Toledo erased a 13-point halftime deficit over the first eight minutes of the second stanza, as Courtney Ingersoll sparked UT's long-range attack with a pair of threes and 10 points in the same span. Her shooting sparked a UT long-range attack that sputtered in the game's first 20 minutes, going 0-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Melissa Goodall also came up big for UT in the second half, totaling eight of her 13 second-half points in the first 10:23 to help the Rockets reclaim the lead. Her free throw with 11:54 to play knotted the score at 46-46 and she scored in the paint one minute later to hand UT its first lead since the 13-minute mark of the first half.
The Rockets stretched the lead to four on a pair of Naama Shafir free throws before two Garrison free throws and five straight points from Christiana Shorter put MSU back on top with 8:28 left on the clock.
Goodall's layup knotted the score on UT's ensuing possession, but Garrison took over from that point, going 4-of-5 from the field over a six-and-a-half minute period to stretch the Lady Bear lead back to nine. Garrison, who also pulled down seven rebounds and recorded a game-high four steals, totaled 21 points after intermission.
Missouri State used a stifling defense and some sharp-shooting to build a commanding 42-29 halftime lead. The Lady Bear defense held UT to just .259 shooting and forced 11 Rocket turnovers, while MSU connected on 5-of-7 three-point attempts. Freshman Karly Buer accounted for three of those long-range buckets to total 13 points in the opening period.
Toledo grabbed an early 8-3 lead on a trio of baskets in the paint before MSU countered with a 16-3 run over a five-minute span to seize a 19-11 advantage. Buer knocked down her first triple at the 15:35 mark to initiate the spurt, then buried two more jumpers during the run, as the Lady Bears pushed their lead to as many as 14 points on two separate occasions in the half.
As a team, Missouri State went 14-of-34 (.412) from the floor in the first half and .373 (22-of-59) for the game. The Lady Bears made the most of their three-point opportunities, hitting 7-of-12 (.583) tries from beyond the arc.
Goodall led UT with 17 points and eight boards, while Shafir (12 points), Ingersoll (10) and Lecretia Smith (10) also finished in double figures.
Buer totaled 15 for the Lady Bears and Shorter finished just one board shy of a double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds.
Missouri State returns to JQH Arena next Saturday (Nov. 27) to start a five-game home stand with a 2:05 p.m. contest against Louisiana Tech.
-MSU-
