BOX SCORE
Staten Island, NY – Junior John'a Poole's (Middle River, MD / Eastern Tech) bank shot from 10 feet out with 1.2 seconds remaining off a nifty feed from classmate
Andrea Reed (Pocomoke City, MD / Pocomoke) lifted the Wagner Seahawks (3-3) to a dramatic 58-56 overtime win over Colgate (2-6). With the victory, the Seahawks have now won three-straight to start the year at home for the first time since the 1996-97 season and the first time ever in the renovated Sports Center.
Not to be lost in the last-second heroics was the play of
Nyoto Patterson (Teaneck, NJ / Manhattan Center (NY). The sophomore forward scored a career-high 10 points with a career-best six rebounds in just 14 minutes off the bench. Reed led all scorers with 15 points, all of which were scored after halftime, while handing out five assists in 36 minutes.
The Green & White forced 31 turnovers, which led to a 32-21 advantage in points off turnovers to off-set a poor shooting performance as Wagner hit on just 32.8 percent from the floor (19-58), including 3-24 (12.5 %) from beyond the arc. However, the Seahawks connected on 70.8 percent of their free throws (17-24) while the Raiders were good on just 42.9 percent (6-14).
Wagner opened the game strong and led 7-0 just over four minutes into the game, on the strength of two
Kelly Clark (Fr., Neptune, NJ / St. Rose) lay-ups. After Colgate responded with a pair of buckets to make it 7-5, the Seahawks used an 8-1 spurt to extend the lead back to seven at 15-6. Colgate continued the early game of runs with six-straight points to cut the lead to three at 15-12. Senior
Casey Stokes (Hummelstown, PA / Lower Dauphin) answered with a three-pointer to push the lead out to 18-12 with 8:19 to go in the half. Colgate would keep fighting and went into intermission down 31-27.
Colgate opened the second half with a 15-3 run to take 42-34 lead at the 10:03 mark. During the Raiders spurt, the Seahawks shot just 1-13 from the floor, including 1-7 from beyond the arc, while committing seven turnovers. After Patterson stopped the bleeding with a put-back lay-up, controversy ensued. With Colgate possessing the ball and four seconds on the shot clock, the game clock did not start right away as the Raiders pushed the lead back out to eight at 44-36 with 8:39 remaining. After a brief meeting the shot was ruled good but Colgate lost its momentum. Wagner's leading scorer Reed, who was scoreless until that point, hit for six-straight points to cut the lead to 44-42 while starting a 12-2 run that would put Wagner up 48-46 with 3:40 remaining. After a Colgate free throw, Reed extended the Wagner lead to 50-47 with 3:17 to go. The Raiders answered with an old-fashioned three-point play from Katie Garman to tie the game at 50-50 with a minute remaining. Wagner had two shots to win the game but could not get either to drop sending the game into overtime.
In the extra session, Colgate grabbed its first lead of the extra session at 56-55 on a free throw from Garman with 1:39 remaining. Patterson then split a pair at the line to tie it up with just 25 seconds remaining. Patricia Oakes missed a shot with 10 seconds remaining and Reed came up with the rebound and pushed it up the floor before finding Poole on the eventual game-winner.
Garman scored 11 points to lead Colgate while Georgia Gier had a game-high 11 rebounds.
Wagner now breaks for Finals and will return to action on Saturday, Dec. 13 at 4 pm when the Seahawks host Quinnipiac in its Northeast Conference (NEC) opener.
