Pacers win another thriller, beat buzzer in PBC opener

Dec. 10—USC AIKEN 71, CLAYTON STATE 70

Mark Miller's opening statement Saturday afternoon was 104 words long, but he more than adequately summed up his USC Aiken women's basketball team's win over Clayton State with the first one.

"Wow."

That alone could cover it after Jentri Worley's half-court buzzer-beater, her second winner in as many games, to cap a wild fourth quarter in which the Pacers went from up seven points with 4:24 remaining to down three with just 1:01 to go.

"... That's back-to-back games for us making big plays," Miller continued. "There were a couple of times where we could have let it slip away from us, but we keep battling and fighting and scratching and clawing to put us in the position where somebody makes a big play in crunch time back-to-back games.

"I'm really proud of our effort. That's a good team over there. We just have to continue to get better. We did some things really well tonight, and then there's some things we didn't do well. So we've just got to keep getting better and grind them out one at a time."

Worley's winner gives the Pacers (5-3, 1-0 Peach Belt Conference) three wins in a row and starts the conference grind on a good note. The Pacers inbounded with 7 seconds remaining after Clayton State's Taniya Patrick hit the second of her two free throws to make it 72-70.

As the hectic final possession wound down the ball ended up in Worley's hands, 10 days after she drilled a 3 with 3 seconds left in overtime for a 68-67 win over Catawba. Surely she would have liked to have attempted her last-second heave from a little closer to the basket, but her shot banked off the glass and through the net for the win.

"I just caught it and threw it up there, and thank gosh it went in," she said.

The Pacers started the game hot, scoring 22 points on 53.3% shooting in the first quarter before cooling down. Part of that was due to Clayton State's relentless pressure and substitutions, often bringing in a fresh five players to maintain the level of defensive intensity, and part of it was due to some self-inflicted wounds at inopportune times.

Still, the Pacers overcame 21 turnovers, 14 blocked shots and early foul trouble to their post players.

"For me, I think it was us keeping our composure," Miller said. "Things got crazy at a couple different times in the game, and I felt like we kept our composure. We still turned the ball over at times, but we also made some really good decisions. There's some progress in what we're doing.

"We know, it's no secret that everybody we play is going to press us. The better we get at it, the more we handle it, the more we make them pay for pressing us, the better we're going to get."

The Pacers were carried at times by their veterans, like Emily Trushel with 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting and seven rebounds. But they also got a big lift from their freshmen — Breanna Gustave had 18 points, eight rebounds and five steals, and center Kelsie Woodard had eight points and nine big rebounds in 17 minutes in her first appearance of the season.

"Definitely next play mentality," Trushel said. "We have a lot of grit on our team. We all just really wanted to win that one, so just never giving up and just getting past the mistakes and making up for it."

The proof in that was how the Pacers, despite facing all of that pressure, forced 20 turnovers of their own and held a 27-18 edge in points scored off those turnovers.

"That doesn't happen very often for us," Miller said. "We turned them over. I thought we played good D, got a hand on a lot of passes, made them rush a little bit. Our defense is getting better, so that's a great sign for us that we can create some points off of their turnovers."

USCA didn't look too sluggish after taking some time off for finals week, and Miller said it was important for them to start conference play right by taking care of business at home.

"It's just our team getting better," he said. "We are a team. We get along great. We battle each other. It's a fun group to be around. It's a lot of enthusiasm for us, and that's what's going to keep us getting better."

USCA will have a quick turnaround, returning to action at 5:30 p.m. at Georgia Southwestern in conference play. The Pacers' next home game is at 5:30 p.m. Friday against Coker.