LOS ANGELES — With its two stars having two of their biggest games of the season, the Occidental College women's basketball team did what it needed to, to keep its SCIAC Postseason Tournament hopes alive.
Makenzie Brandon (Seattle, Wash.) went off again, scoring 23 of her game-high 38 points in the first half, Elizabeth Messick (Reno, Nev.) recorded a triple-double and the Tigers (15-9, 11-5 SCIAC) won at Whittier 76-62 on Monday night in its last regular season game of the season, positioning itself for a coin-flip tiebreaker tomorrow morning with La Verne, which easily held up its end of the bargain with a 111-69 win over Pomona-Pitzer.
With a witness present, SCIAC commissioner Lorin Huffman will flip the coin first thing in the morning on Tuesday when she gets into her Pasadena office, determining the fate of two 11-5 teams that don't have a relevant tiebreaker to decide which gets the No. 4 seed and trip to Thousand Oaks on Thursday to face No. 1 Cal Lutheran. Oxy and La Verne split their two head-to-head games and each have identical records against every other conference opponent, both the tiebreakers listed in the SCIAC women's basketball bylaws.
The lucky team will face the Regals on Thursday afternoon.
But, regardless of what happens Tuesday, the Tigers made sure they handled their business in the moment at Dave Jacobs Court on Monday.
Brandon went on her own 13-0 run from the 6:49-mark in the first half until Whittier's Brenda Kramer hit a free throw with 1:36 left in the period, giving the Tigers a 38-23 lead at halftime.
Brandon, who upped her Occidental career scoring record to 1,572 points, continued her incredible case for a second SCIAC Player of the Year award and All-American honors, going 15-24 from the field, with eight rebounds, four assists and four steals.
"Mak did it again tonight. It's really just amazing," Occidental coach Anahit Aladzhanyan said of her senior star. "Just when you think, 'okay there's no way she can top that performance,' she does it again. She truly is one of the best players in the country and one of the best players to ever play at Oxy."
Messick, who's played sparingly in the last two games recovering from injury, came back with a fury, scoring 11 points, with 12 blocks and 15 rebounds. It's the second game in a row that an Oxy women's basketball player has recorded a triple-double — Katelyn Rowe (Carlsbad) had one in Oxy's win over Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday.
"It was great to see Bitsy back to her usual form," Aladzhanyan said. "She was incredible protecting the basket tonight, on the glass and scoring the ball."
Whittier made its biggest push to make a game of the President's Day showing with a 9-2 run to open the second half, but the Tigers were able to weather the storm and maintain their lead throughout the rest of the contest.
Liz Little (Littleton, Colo.) scored eight points, going 2 for 4 from the three-point line, and Stephanie Scamman (Northridge) added six.
Alex Coon led Whittier with 19 points and Brenda Kramer had 10.