The women’s basketball ODAC tournament began on Feb. 22 in Salem, Va., and for the women’s basketball team, this tournament is something most of the players on the current roster are very familiar with. However, the team suffered an overtime loss to Randolph-Macon with a score of 72-66.
Senior Amanda Gerni led all Marlin scorers with 20 points, and also logged a team-high 10 rebounds, in addition to sophomore Jada Lewis’s 10 boards. Senior Jayla Harris also contributed 19 points and three assists.
In the previous season that the team traveled to Salem for the tournament, they were knocked out in the semifinals by Randolph-Macon. The team was not able to exact revenge this year as the Yellow Jackets once again ended their season.
The women’s basketball team clawed their way to a winning 14-12 record and were ranked fifth in the conference heading into the tournament. Randolph-Macon finished fourth in the conference, whom they split the regular season series with 1-1.
Senior guard Cecilia Billings said that they were completely locked in to the fact that it was a survive and advance situation.
Harris was this season’s ODAC Player of the Year, and finished the season as the career leading scorer for the women’s basketball program with 1931 points. Gerni also earned conference recognition as she was selected to the All-ODAC Third Team.
“I think for all of the upperclassmen the sense of urgency really kicked in as we knew what not winning this game would mean. With Macon being our rivals, the game was even more important,” Billings said.
Joshua Gray
jagray@vwu.edu
