January 31 at Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, MO
NBC Sports Network
I thought with Fordham's leader G'mrice Davis out for Wednesday afternoon's game it'd be a back court battle between the Rams' Bre Cavanaugh and Jackie Kemph of Saint Louis. And while both players were very good - Cavanaugh scored 37 points and Kemph had 21 points with nine assists - I was most impressed with Billikens' senior froward Maddison Gits.
Gits scored a career-high 34 points on 11-of-15 shooting and grabbed 15 rebounds in a 91-85, double-overtime for the hosts.
Davis came into the day second nationally in rebounding and averaging a team-best 16.7 points. With her out of the lineup, Cavanaugh, the team's second-leading scorer but just a freshman, took on the majority of the scoring responsibility and it took her 30 shots to get to that career-high scoring mark. It didn't help that Mary Goulding had nine first-quarter points, but just nine the rest of the day and Lauren Holden scored just nine of her 17 after the break.
Kemph, a senior and the school's all-time leader in points and assists, had 17 of her points after halftime. Saint Louis erased a 16-point second-half deficit and actually led 65-59 with about 4 1/2 minutes to play in the fourth. That's when Cavanaugh and Gits began trading points over the final stretch of the fourth. After Kemph fed Gits for a bucket that put the Billikens up 69-68 with just under a minute left, a 1-of-2 trip to the free-throw line for Kemph and Cavanaugh's 2-of-2 trip to tie things up at 70-70 with 10 seconds left were the last points of regulation.
The first overtime was fairly uneventful - just five points for each team and Jordyn Frantz of Saint Louis missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Cavanaugh began the second extra session by scoring the first eight Fordham points, including a jumper with two minutes to play that tied it at 83-83. The Billikens took the lead for good on a pair of free throws by Kemph on the ensuing possession.
Saint Louis (12-10), which moved to 6-3 in Atlantic 10 play and dropped Fordham (17-6) to 8-2, really turned things around with a great third quarter. The Billikens trailed 41-27 at halftime and by 16 at one point in the third, but ending up shooting 10-of-14 from the field in that period and led by two heading to the fourth.
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