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Shaketia Barnes earns MVP honors as Western's women win Alaska tourney
Shaketia Barnes scored 17 points Saturday while Jennifer Gardner netted 16 and had a dominating performance with 19 rebounds leading Western Carolina to a 79-70 victory over Alaska-Fairbanks in the championship game of the Mt. McKinley Bank North Star Invitational in Fairbanks.
Lori Tanner added 14 points for the Lady Cats (3-1), and Sigita Maleraite had 11.
Barnes was named the tournament's most valuable player, and Gardner was chosen for the all-tournament team.
Adrienne Taalak and Cody Burgess both scored 19 points for the Lady Nanooks.
"I'm so very proud of our team and the effort they put forth," Coach Kellie Harper said. "Winning this tournament is huge for both our team and our program. That was a tough team we faced, but we again showed a lot of heart in turning up the intensity in the second half."
Western trailed 34-31 at intermission but took the lead for good on Tanner's free throw with 17:28 left in the game.
"At halftime, we said we were going to get the ball inside, and we executed better in the second half," Harper said. "We need to play well for 40 minutes so we don't have to climb out of a hole every night."
Western shot 40 percent from the floor while Fairbanks made 39.1 percent of its field goal tries.
Gardner led WCU to a 51-30 rebounding advantage. Burgess had six boards for the Lady Nanooks.
The Lady Cats committed 18 turnovers, and Fairbanks had 12.
Completing the WCU scoring were Teyawna Hardy with seven, Ashley Pellom, Chevon Keith and Jessika Jones all with four, and Ki-Ki Glass with two.
Jacksonville State
Western opened the tourney Friday with a 75-73 victory over Jacksonville State behind 16 points from Leah Barrier and 10 from Barnes.
Jacksonville's Shanika Freeman had a big game with 28 points and 12 rebounds. Freddricka Embry added 11 points.
WCU followed a familiar pattern by falling behind 47-39 at halftime as the Lady Gamecocks scored the final 11 points.
Western started the second half with a 13-4 run and built a 69-59 advantage with 5:30 to play.
Jacksonville rallied with seven unanswered points, but WCU made four of five free throws to seal the win.
"I felt like we did not come out with enough intensity to start the game," Harper said. "At halftime, we challenged our kids to step it up on the defensive end and execute the game plan on offense, and I felt we did that extremely well for the first 13 minutes of the second half. We were able to force a few turnovers and get some easy looks to make our run."
The defensive improvement was shown as Jacksonville shot 60 percent from the floor in the first half but just 29 percent thereafter to finish at 44.3 percent. WCU hit 46.9 percent of its field goal tries.
The Lady Gamecocks controlled the boards 41-26. Hardy was Western's top rebounder with five.
Jacksonville committed 28 turnovers, and the Lady Cats had 22.
Rounding out the WCU scoring were Gardner and Maleraite with nine apiece, Tanner with eight, Hardy and Keith both with six, Pellom and Johnson with four each, Glass with two and Erin May with one.
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