Bears Rally Again Late for 60-54 Win at Jacksonville State

JACKSONVILLE, Ala. (MERCER RELEASE) – The Mercer women’s basketball team employed a last-minute rally for the second game in a row to pull out a 60-54 road win at Jacksonville State on Tuesday evening at the Pete Mathews Coliseum.

Mercer (6-4) out-scored Samford 14-3 over the final five-plus minutes last time out and tonight out-scored Jacksonville State 8-0 over final 2:30 of the contest to pull out the win.

“When you look at the fact that Jacksonville State went on a 17-0 run to start the second half and we simply weren’t hitting open shots against its zone, I was really pleased with our effort and our energy to will ourselves to this win tonight,” head coach Susie Gardner said. “Taylor McClintock came off the bench and hit some really big shots to kind of get us going, lift our confidence and open the net up for other players to score.”

Senior Kendra Grant led four Bears in double figures with 17 points. Senior Sharnea Boykin handed out eight assists, her seventh-straight game with five or more helpers, while tying her season-high with three steals in the win.

Both teams traded buckets early on as a mid-range jumper by Grant pushed Mercer out to a 12-10 lead over Jacksonville State with 13:15 to go in the first half.

The Bears started to put some distance between themselves and the Gamecocks in the middle stages of the first half. A 10-2 run by the Orange and Black, capped by four-straight points by Grant, saw them take a 24-14 advantage over Jacksonville State with 7:49 remaining in the first half.

JSU hung around, however, ending the period on a 9-4 spurt to cut Mercer’s lead down to 28-23 going into halftime.

Both teams struggled to find any rhythm offensively throughout the first 20 minutes of the contest as Mercer shot just 36 percent from the field compared to Jacksonville State’s 33 percent shooting.

The Gamecocks came out firing on all cylinders to start the second half, however, using a 17-0 run to jump out to a 40-28 with 17:42 remaining in the game. Sophomore Destany McLin powered the home team with eight points during the surge.

Mercer eventually stopped the Gamecocks scoring run and amped up its defense with a full court press and frantic trapping to create some turnovers and generate quick offense.

Freshman Taylor McClintock combined the Bears vamped up defense with some offense off the bench, nailing back-to-back shots to pull Mercer within three of Jacksonville State, 40-37, with 11:16 to go in the second half.

With the Bears still trailing by three, McLin kept the Gamecocks in front by canning a three-pointer to make the score 51-45 Gamecocks with 6:15 left in the contest.

With Jacksonville State up seven with just over three minutes left in the game, Mercer employed its never say die attitude one more time.

Back-to-back buckets by Grant and six late free throws by junior Alicia Williams spearheaded the Bears late surge to secure their second-straight comeback win.

Mercer shot just 34 percent in the game, but forced Jacksonville State into 20 turnovers and collected a season-high nine steals as a team in the win.

“We had great defensive effort late, got stops when we needed to and in particular Alicia Williams got to the free throw line for us to win the game,” Gardner said. “Once again, we didn’t play our best basketball but this team is confident and comes up big in key scenarios to help us win.”

Mercer will stay in the state of Alabama for its next contest when it takes on Alabama State on Dec. 20. Game time is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Dunn-Oliver Acadome.