The St. Louis Community College women's basketball team led for the first 58 minutes of the game Thursday afternoon vs. Kalamazoo Valley, but needed heroics in the last 12 seconds to advance to the 5th/6th place game on Saturday afternoon at the NJCAA Division 2 national tournament.
The Archers used balanced scoring to jump out to a 15-6 lead after the first quarter and took a 32-24 lead into the locker room at the half. After three quarters, the STLCC lead was cut to five at 48-43 and they held the lead until the 2:09 mark in fourth quarter, when Kalamazoo took their first lead of the game and their last. The Lady Archers found an answer as Shamiah Oliver scored on two straight possesions and Erica Waeltermann calmly drilled two free throws. Kalamazoo would not go away though, as they hit a three pointer with 12.3 seconds remaining to tie the game at 62. STLCC called a timeout and set up what would be their final play of the game as Oliver took the inbounds pass and drove from halfcourt to the right side of the lane and delivered a perfect bounce pass to a cutting Erika Harvey who hit the lay up with 1.3 seconds to go to give the Archers the 64-62 lead. Kalamazoo took a timeout to advance the ball to halfcourt, but after the inbounds pass could not get a shot off in time.
The Lady Archers dominated the boards as they had a 48-28 rebounding advantage, including a 23-5 advantage on the offensive glass. Chrishana Wilson pulled down 19 rebounds, while Alfreda Roberts added 13. Oliver lead all scores with 15 points, while Wilson netted 14 points to go along with 3 steals.
STLCC improves to 25-9 on the season and will play Saturday at 2:00 pm vs. the winner of Cincinnati St-Essex County game.