Appalachian State Wins WBI Championship

Appalachian State Wins WBI Championship

3/29/2010

Appalachian State University women’s basketball rallied a comeback after falling behind by 19 points, to top Memphis 79-71 Sunday afternoon at the Holmes Center in the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational Championship game. With the victory ASU closes out the season with a stout 23-12 record, having won eight straight contests on its home floor, while the Tigers drop to 20-14.

The outcome looked bleak for the Mountaineers as Memphis dominated the first 14 minutes of action, grabbing a commanding 36-17 lead. Brittany Carter paced the deadly Memphis offense as she had 16 early points

Carter ended as the contest’s leading scorer, pouring in a game-high 31.

Despite the deficit, ASU would not back down, as a Chakeitha Weldon trey sparked a 20-4 Black and Gold streak to close out the half. Offensive production came from all over for the Mountaineers, as five other Apps in addition to Weldon put points on the board.

Weldon was stout offensively, as she totaled 15 points on 6-of-13 shooting, including going 1-2 from behind the arc.

The run cut Memphis’ lead to just three, as Appalachian headed into intermission down 40-37.

A hotly contested second-half saw just three different lead changes with the final one at the 9:56 mark in Appalachian’s favor proving to be the difference-maker in the game.

After Memphis went up 56-52 with a little over ten minutes to play, another silencing 16-1 Black and Gold run pushed ASU in front of Memphis and the Apps never looked back.

Led by freshman Ashlen Dewart, who had eight of the 16 points, Appalachian jumped out to its largest lead of the game at 11, up 68-57.

Dewart finished with a team-high 21 points while grabbing nine rebounds and swatting three shots. For her efforts throughout the WBI tournament, averaging 18.5 points a game and hauling in an average of 8.0 rebounds per contest, the Spartanburg, S.C. native was named the tournament’s MVP.

The Tigers tried to comeback pulling back with in five with less than four minutes to play, but ASU’s offense never let up and the Mountaineers went on to earn the eight-point victory.

by: Bret Seymour, Sport Tours International