Hawks fly to another victory

January 10, 2006|by JACK HILL III / Staff Correspondent

The Hagerstown Community College women's basketball team proved Monday night they can recover from a bad start.

The Hawks trailed the Northern Virginia Raiders 14-4 after the first 11 minutes, 37 seconds, but scored 15 unanswered points to take the lead for good at 19-14 with 2:52 remaining in the first half on their way to a 64-52 victory at the HCC athletic complex.

HCC (11-4) took its biggest lead at 41-27 with 11:21 left in the second half. Northern Virginia (2-3) chopped the lead all the way down to 48-46 with 5:20 left before HCC center Lindsey Plotner scored a basket and made a free throw to extend HCC's lead to five with 3:52 remaining.

The Hawks' 9-1 run over the final two minutes put the game away. Point guard Requita Davis started the scoring spurt with a 3-pointer. After Northern Virginia made a foul shot, the Hawks scored the final six points. Marisa Elliot made a layup and two free throws and Samantha Cain sank 2 of 4 foul shots.

HCC made 18 of 24 foul shots, all coming in the second half.

"After a timeout, we put a press on with about four minutes left in the game," HCC coach Marlys Palmer said. "That created a few turnovers and that helped us to get some foul shots. That was big for us to do well at the foul line."

Plotner scored a game-high 13 points on 6-for-12 shooting and blocked two shots.

"Requita Davis and Marisa Elliot dished me off good passes," Plotner said. "All I had to do was finish them. All of us worked real well together."

"Lindsey had a good shooting night from the floor," Palmer said. "That was good for her since she had the flu bug for the last couple of days. Our guards did a good job of penetrating and giving her the ball."

Plotner felt the defense was a big factor in the Hawks' win.

"In our past games, we have been letting people score 70 points on us," Plotner added. "Coach Palmer said that we had to drop that average down to 50 points if we were going to win any ballgames. We had to pick it up on defense."

Cristi Bartlett hauled in 15 rebounds, while reserve forward Erika Williams added 12 points and nine rebounds for HCC. Chrissy Minnick had nine rebounds, Elliot made four steals and Davis had four assists. The Hawks outrebounded Northern Virginia, 56-41.

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