ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The Embry-Riddle women's basketball team earned its first road win of the season in dramatic fashion on Tuesday, holding off Flagler (2-1) 62-59 at the Flagler Gymnasium. For the second straight meeting, an Embry-Riddle/Flagler contest went down to the wire and the Eagles staved off a furious late-game rally by the Saints to come away with the win and improve their record to 3-0 on the year.
With a capacity crowd in attendance for Flagler's Education Day, the Saints scored the first bucket of the game to take an early 2-0 lead, but the Eagles used 53.8 percent shooting clip to take a 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter. The ERAU offense cooled to just 31.3 percent (5-of-16) in the second quarter, but the visitors were able to build on a 33-26 halftime advantage and led by as many as 14 points late in the third period.
The Eagle lead was 12 (56-44) through the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, but a resilient Saints offense rallied to erase the deficit. At the 5:57 mark, Chris Wilson finished a layup, and that basket keyed a 14-2 run that gave the home team its first lead since the first quarter.
After Tabitha Odabe's layup with 56 seconds left put the Saints ahead 59-58, ERAU Head Coach Lisa Nuxol-Wilson called timeout and advanced the ball. The Eagles' next possession saw
Nikki Tucker fouled on her way to the basket and the sophomore completed a perfect 6-for-6 day at the charity stripe with a pair of free throws to put the Blue and Gold back in front, 60-59.
The Saints looked to employ a similar strategy by calling timeout to advance the ball, but a stout Eagle defense prevented the ball from coming into play and forced Flagler to burn another timeout to regroup. The Saints' second attempt at in-bounding the basketball proved equally unsuccessful as the pass was picked off by
Sigrid Sandstrom with 39 seconds left on the clock.
The Eagles got the ball down the court to Tucker who missed a shot from the top of the arc, but
Lauren Ellenberger battled for the rebound and was fouled in the process, earning a trip to free throw line. After the senior connected on both attempts to make the score 62-59 with 6.8 seconds left to play, the Saints called another timeout to advance the ball, but a strong Eagle defense limited Flagler to a long range shot that was way off the mark, giving ERAU the win.
Ellenberger was solid all-around for the Eagles, scoring 13 points to go with eight assists, six rebounds and two steals. Tucker finished with a game-high 18 points and eight rebounds for an Eagle team that outrebounded the Saints 44-36.
"I'm really proud of the team for getting a win on the road in a loud environment against a good team like Flagler," Nuxol-Wilson said. "We have a lot of things to learn from these last three games and will use the next week of practice to get better at them. Everyone contributed today and I think we have some huge potential to be really good this year if everyone keeps working."
After playing three games in four days, the Eagles will have an extended break before hosting Puerto Rico Mayaguez at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 21 at the ICI Center.
