BALTIMORE – With every win the North Carolina A&T women's basketball team creeps closer to its first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular-season title in six years. The Aggies defeated Morgan State Monday night 65-55 to move into a first-place tie with the team who has dominated the regular-season title since the Aggies last won it, Hampton.
N.C. A&T is 14-10 overall and 10-3 in the MEAC. The Aggies need to keep winning and hope for another Hampton loss to claim the title outright. The Aggies have won five straight and eight out of their last nine. Sophomore Kala Green led the Aggies with 13 points and four assists for her fourth straight game scoring double figures, the longest such streak in her career. Dana Brown added 11 points and Courtney Powell had 10 rebounds.
"I'm really proud of the way our ladies competed the entire game," said N.C. A&T head coach Tarrell Robinson. "Morgan State is one of the hottest teams in the MEAC right now. Coming into their gym to play a game that could decide at least a share of the regular-season crown was hard-fought situation that only a determined team could overcome. That's what this group did tonight."
The two teams were tied at 46 with five minutes. Redshirt junior Dana Brown, who has been hitting big shots for the Aggies all season, broke the tie with her team-leading 51st 3-pointer to give the Aggies a 49-46 lead. Sophomore Quenswelya Story added to the lead after she followed her own miss. But the Bears were able to tie the game over the next two minutes at 51.
Once again however, Brown was the tiebreaker. Brown took a pass from graduate center Aprill McRae and scored on a layup to give the Aggies a 53-51 lead with 3:05 to play. Green then completed a huge 3-point play for N.C. A&T as she was fouled by Lexus Spears on a layup. After a MSU free throw, the Aggies increased their lead to 58-52 with 1:15 to play on a short jumper by McRae.
MSU (12-14, 10-4 MEAC) answered the Aggies 3-point play with a 3-point play of their own as Tykyrah Williams scored and was fouled by Powell to cut the Aggies lead to three. But N.C. A&T still did one better. McRae made another effective pass, this time to Green, as Green scored and again was fouled on the play. She completed the 3-point play to give the Aggies a 61-55 lead with 50 seconds remaining.
"I told our players that tonight's win was a character win," said Robinson. 'We really found out who we were tonight. With a lot of our key players like Aprill McRae and Dana Brown in foul trouble in the first half, it was important our bench play well."
Robinson complimented the play of two of his sophomores. Story's offensive and defensive play were key in the first half according to Robinson, and Green came up big late for the second straight game.
N.C. A&T will continue their quest for the No. 1 seed in next month's MEAC tournament when they travel to Tallahassee, Fla., to face one of the top teams in the conference in Florida A&M on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 4 p.m.
