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Grantham, PA - Taylor Kreider scored 23 points to lead the Elizabethtown Blue Jays to a shocking upset of No. 5 Messiah College, with E'town winning on the Falcons' home court 62-57.
The Blue Jays' Alyssa Aichele scored four-straight points to give E'town the lead with just over five minutes left. The Falcons (16-2, 10-1) did their best to fight back, but could not draw a tie or take the lead again. Their best chance to do so came with 28 seconds left, when senior
Jordan Seiz missed the front end of a one-and-one, leaving the Falcons trailing 58-57.
E'town (9-7, 7-4) sealed the victory by hitting four free-throws to end the game, completing the national upset by defeating Messiah for the first time since 2001.
"We weren't as inspired as E'town was tonight," head coach
Mike Miller said. "The pressure they put on us early made it difficult to run our offense. We tightened up and never really recovered."
After going up 7-2 in the opening minutes, the Falcons found themselves down 10-9 just minutes later when E'town's Taylor Kreider completed her first of three, three-point-plays.
Messiah regained the lead by exploiting a mismatch inside and finding their leading scorer, senior
Dori Gyori. With eight minutes to play, senior
Taylor Miller drove the middle and dished to Gyori who rolled to her right side for the easy layup and a 16-13 lead.
In the next possession, junior
Chelsea Danel increased the Falcons' lead to five as she drove in transition, stuttered, and went left for a driving score.
After a few baskets by the Blue Jays, Messiah found Gyori again, this time coming off of a high-low feed from senior
Nicky Hess. Hess drove the lane, drew defenders, and then kicked the ball back up top to Gyori on the right side for two. At the other end of the court, Gyori came up with a post feed steal to bring possession back to the Falcons. As Danel pushed the ball up court in transition, she found Hess in the corner for a deep jumper, putting Messiah up 27-19 with under three minutes left in the half.
Miller knocked in a jumper as the shot clock winded down - her first points of the game - to give the Falcons their largest lead of the half 29-19 with 1:31 to play. In the waning seconds, the Blue Jays brought their deficit down to eight points with a layup from Kendra Beittel.
"At the half we knew we needed to improve in many areas," Miller said. "We were hesitant at times and made some bad decisions. We needed to step up and execute."
Things looked promising for the Falcons when they opened up the second half with a triple from Danel, but E'town had other ideas.
Kreider, the leading rebounder and second leading scorer in the conference, hit her second three-point-play to bring the Blue Jays within five with more than 16 minutes to play. Just three minutes later, Taylor Santor's shot clock beating jumper brought E'town even closer to 37-34.
Messiah dug deep and responded, extending their lead back to 10 points on several big plays.
Senior
Kira Maier jump started the effort by scoring off a feed from Danel for two points. Hess broke up E'town's next in-bounds play, eventually finding sophomore
Sienna Wisse underneath for another two points. Just two plays later, Hess pushed the ball in transition to find Wisse yet again for the baseline jumper and the 47-37 lead.
But in the very next possession, the Blue Jays went to work. Kreider picked up her third three-point play of the game to draw to 47-40. Moments later, Nadine Yunginger forced a Falcon turnover in the half court and pushed forward, finding Kreider for the quick bucket. Kreider would turn around and get a steal and a fast break layup of her own, nearly equalizing things 47-46 with under nine to play.
Messiah countered quickly with a layup from Gyori and a 30-second timeout. Messiah came out of the timeout in a "show-me" press back into a 2-3 zone, forcing the Blue Jays to get creative.
E'town's Alyssa Aichele responded by driving baseline against the zone to hit a reverse layup and put the Blue Jays up by a point, and then hit another layup in the half court to take the lead 52-49 with more than five minutes remaining.
Just like the first half, when the game got tight, the Falcons looked inside to Gyori. After a battle for position underneath the basket, Danel fed it in to Gyori for a left side layup. Gyori would hit another post score bringing Messiah within one, 54-53. E'town hit a few buckets of their own to keep the lead, but Gyori picked up a steal and was fouled in the post, forcing the Blue Jays to take a timeout with one minute to play.
After making both free throws, the Falcons' deficit was only one point, 58-57. In the next possession, Messiah forced an E'town shot clock violation to regain possession. The momentum seemed to be shifting back to the Falcons.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
With 28 seconds on the clock, Yunginger was forced to foul to regain possession, sending Seiz to the line. After missing the front end of a one-and-one, Gyori came up with the rebound but was stripped by Kreider. Gyori immediately fouled Kreider, sending her to the line for a one-and-one. Kreider came through for the Blue Jays, sinking both shots and extending their lead 60-57.
Messiah battled until the very end, putting up two more shots in the final seconds, but couldn't get them to fall. As the final seconds ticked away, the Blue Jays closed out the 62-57 upset by sinking their last two free throws, sending shock waves through the conference.
For the Falcons, the shock was palpable. The loss ended a 22-game winning streak over the Blue Jays. It also ended an 11-game, home court winning streak over the Blue Jays. But this definitely isn't the end-all, be-all for Messiah.
"This changes nothing for us," Miller said. "As I told the team at halftime, we have the same goals and the same focus as we had before the game ever started. I am very confident in our team and our ability to learn from this and move forward."
The Falcons will do just that on Saturday when they travel to Reading, Pa., to take on Albright College. The game will begin at 2:00 p.m.
Check out a few photos from tonight's contest! (These photos are NOW available to be purchased!)
WBB: Falcons Upended by Jays Gallery
