Blinn rolls in NJCAA round of 16
Jakoriah Long, with 17 points, was one of five players in double digits for No. 5 seed Blinn College, which took control early and ran away from North Dakota State College of Science 80-63 Friday in the women's basketball NJCAA Tournament round of 16 at the Rip Griffin Center.
Blinn (31-3) will meet No. 4 seed College of Southern Idaho (30-2) in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Ivy Fox led NDSCS (31-4) with 19 points and Grace Massaquoi added 15. The Lady Wildcats trailed 43-23 at halftime and got as close as 12 points in the second half thanks to three straight 3-point goals from Charita Lewis.
Skyler Barnes added 14 points for Blinn. Hannah Humphrey scored 12 and Tiffany Tullis and Makayla Patterson 10 each.
Southern Idaho 61
New Mexico JC 58
Tylie Jones scored 19 points off the bench, Alyssa Christensen drained a pair of free throws with 10.1 seconds left, and Southern Idaho held off a rally by New Mexico Junior College in the round of 16.
Trailing 57-45 with 7:57 to play, NMJC (26-6) used a 13-2 run over the next 6 ½ minutes to get within one. The Thunderbirds had two chances to take the lead, but Danna Grenald, who had a game-high 23 points, missed a layup with just under a minute to play, and after a Southern Idaho miss, Delma Zita stepped out of bounds under the NMJC basket with 15.4 to play.
Forced to foul, NMJC put Christensen at the free-throw line, and she knocked down the game-clinching pair. The Thunderbirds had one last chance but Duda Raimundo's 3-point attempt missed as the buzzer sounded.
Zita added 16 points for the Thunderbirds.
Trinity Valley 73, McLennan 50
Briana Peguero had 16 points, Ashanti Barnes added 12 points and 10 rebounds and No. 3 seed Trinity Valley Community College put away No. 14 seed McLennan Community College in a second-round showdown between Texas teams.
Trinity Valley (32-2) will continue its quest for a record ninth NJCAA women's basketball title in a quarterfinal at 7 p.m. Saturday. They will face the winner between Jones College and Gulf Coast State. Trinity Valley beat Jones twice early in the season, by eight and 16 points, respectively.
Emani Jenkins added 11 points and Abby Carter 10 for Trinity Valley, which outscored McLennan 27-4 from late in the first quarter into the second.
Jaydyn Bullard scored 11 points to lead the Highlassies (28-5).
Jones College 71
Gulf Coast State 69
Sakyia White hit a contested layup at the buzzer, and No. 6 seed Jones College survived against No. 11 seed and perennial national contender Gulf Coast State in the last round-of-16 game.
White's game winner gave her 19 points to go along with 17 rebounds.
En'Dya Buford added a game-high 20 points for the Bobcats (26-3) and Meloney Thames chipped in 17 points in the victory, which came only after Gulf Coast (25-5) tied the game with 1.2 seconds to play on a three-point play by Tasionna McDowell.
The win puts the Bobcats into the quarterfinals on Saturday where they will face third-seeded Trinity Valley at 7 p.m. Jones' win means all eight of the top seeds going into the tournament avoided upset bids along the way.
But it wasn't for a lack of trying on Gulf Coast's part. The Commodores had their best chance at pulling the upset when they came out and scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter to take a 55-49 lead with 7:26 to play, four of those points coming from Ciante Downs, who led Gulf Coast with 13 points.
The Commodores tied the game 66-66 on a 3-point goal by Alieghya Bartholomew with 30 seconds left. Buford then added three free throws to push the lead back to three a 69-66, Gulf Coast missing a chance to tie or take the lead when Bartholomew lost the ball of bounds with 16.9 to play. But that just set up the dramatics for both sides.
Thursday's late games
NW Florida State 59
Shelton State 51
Sakima Walker made 7 of 9 field goals in a 16-point performance, and Destiny McPhaul and Zayla Tinner were close behind with 15 and 14 points, leading No. 8 seed Northwest Florida State over No. 9 seed Shelton State in the round of 16.
Nya Valentine tried to keep Shelton State in the game with her 22 points and four 3-point goals, but Maya Cunningham with 10 points was the only other double-digit scorer for the Lady Bucs (31-4).
Eastern Florida State 73
Walters State 45
Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu scored 16 points, L'or Eyeba Mputu and Elli Garnet backed her with 14 and 13, respectively, and Eastern Florida State lived up to its No. 2 seed by beating No. 18 seed Walters State by the most lopsided margin in the tournament's first two days.
Maiya Reed and Kailyn Farrell scored 11 points apiece for Walters State (26-5), an east Tennessee school that was coming off a first-round victory over Casper College.
Wabash Valley 60, Cochise 57
Wabash Valley, averaging more than 103 points per game, found a way to pull out a 60-57 victory over No. 23 seed Cochise in easily its lowest-scoring output of the season.
Shaulana Wagner hit a putback off a Brooklyn Gray miss with 25 seconds to play, then converted two free throws following a steal with 10.1 left to ice the game for Wabash Valley, an Illinois school. The Lady Warriors (31-1) will take on Eastern Florida State in the quarterfinals at 3 p.m. Saturday.
Wagner was the catalyst for the Lady Warriors, scoring a game-high 21 points.
Wabash Valley had scored 100 or more points in 19 of 31 games going into its tournament opener and had scored fewer than 90 just three times.
Deyana Bogan led Cochise (28-6) with 14 points. Alayna Contreras added 13 points and Deja Jones 10
NJCAA TOURNAMENT
at Rip Griffin Center
(Seedings, records in parentheses)
Round of 16
Thursday's Results
South Georgia Tech 54, Moberly Area 49
Northwest Florida State 59, Shelton State 51
Eastern Florida State 73, Walters State 45
Wabash Valley 60, Cochise 57
Friday's Results
Southern Idaho 61, New Mexico Junior College 58
Blinn College 80, North Dakota State College of Science 63
Trinity Valley Community College 73, McLennan Community College 50
Jones College 71, Gulf Coast State 69
Saturday's Games
Quarterfinals
South Georgia Tech (1) (33-1) vs. Northwest Florida State (8) (26-4), 1 p.m.
Eastern Florida State (2) (32-1) vs. Wabash Valley (7) (31-1), 3 p.m.
Southern Idaho (4) (30-2) vs. Blinn (5) (31-3), 5 p.m.
Trinity Valley (3) (32-2) vs. Jones (6) (26-3), 7 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: NJCAA Tournament roundup: Blinn rolls in round of 16
