Box Score
INSTITUTE, W.Va. - The Concord University women's basketball team was defeated by West Virginia State 66-60 Saturday afternoon at Fleming Hall in Mountain East Conference play.
Concord (9-13, 7-11 MEC) was led by junior guard
Sissy Wagner, who finished with 19 points, three assists, three rebounds and tied a season-high with four steals. Fellow junior guard
Rachel Artrip joined Wagner in double figures, scoring 15 points on 46.7 percent shooting (7-for-15) and grabbing seven rebounds.
Junior forward
Andrea Bertrand just missed out on registering her sixth double-double of the season after a nine-point, 11-rebound effort. With the nine-point showing, Bertrand now needs 14 points to become the 15th CU player to score 1,000 points. She is also just 12 rebounds away from reaching 500 boards for her career. Only five other Mountain Lions have had 1,000-point, 500-rebound careers.
Bertrand also matcher career-high with five steals. She established the personal-best mark earlier this season when she had five steals at Shepherd.Â
Senior center
Sammi Webster was a force defensively for Concord as she closed the day with a career-high six blocks while scoring nine points and pulling in four rebounds. By denying six shots Saturday, Webster moved from ninth to a tie for sixth in all-time blocked shots at CU with Amber Showalter (2005-09) with 50.
The Mountain Lions held an 8-2 lead in the opening minutes of the game. West Virginia State (15-9, 11-7 MEC)Â would cut the lead to as little as one point, 11-10, with 10:56 left in the half before Concord went on another 8-2 run to stretch its lead to 19-12 at the 7:17 mark.
West Virginia State rebounded with six unanswered points over the next two minutes. The final basket of the first half for the Mountain Lions came on a tip-in by junior forward
Jacqueline Kestner with 3:08 remaining. The Yellow Jackets scored the half's final four points to take a slim 22-21 lead into the break.
Over the first five minutes of the second half, CU went on a 13-8 scoring spurt to retake the lead, 34-30. However, West Virginia State outscored the Mountain Lions 19-5 over the next seven minutes to lead 49-39 at the 8:30 mark.
Concord began to mount a comeback by scoring nine of the game's next 10 points to trim the deficit to 50-48 with 5:48 remaining, but WVSU quickly went on a 9-3 run to maintain the lead and come away with the six-point win.
Kestner finished the contest with three steals to go along with eight points and five rebounds. Over Kestner's last five games, she has 10 steals.
As a team, the Mountian Lions came away with a season-high 14 steals, the most since they registered 14 vs. UVa.-Wise Nov. 27, 2012.
Concord's eight blocks was also a season-high. CU hasn't had more than eight blocks in a game since Jan. 12, 2012 when they blocked 10 shots at West Virginia State.
For the game, Concord held edges over West Virginia State in points off turnovers (22-12), points in the paint (38-36), steals (14-9) and offensive rebounds (14-11).
West Virginia State was led by Lexy Carson, who scored a game-high 25 points to go with five rebounds.
The Mountain Lions will play their next two games at the Carter Center beginning 5:30 p.m. Thursday night vs. Fairmont State.
