NEWBERG, Ore. – Led by Keisha Gordon's sterling all-around performance, the George Fox University Bruins punched their sixth straight ticket to the NCAA Division III National Tournament with an 85-69 win over the Lewis & Clark College Pioneers in the Northwest Conference Women's Basketball Tournament finale Saturday night here at the Wheeler Sports Center's Miller Gym.
Gordon, the NWC Player of the Year, scored 21 points with nine rebounds, six assists and four steals as the third-ranked Bruins remained unbeaten at 27-0 and won the NWC Tournament for the fourth consecutive time. Lewis & Clark, ranked seventh in the D3hoops.com poll and eighth in the WBCA poll, fell to 24-3, with all three losses at the hands of the Bruins.
With a season-high crowd of 1,663 looking on, George Fox opened up a 9-0 lead to start the game on layups by Megan Arnoldy and Gordon, a traditional three-point play by Hayley Cusick, and a basket by Hannah Munger. The Pioneers finally got on the board with a pair of Megan Spence free throws at the 16:37 mark. After a pair of Gordon free throws, Spence hit a long-distance three-pointer to cut the George Fox lead to six at 11-5 with 15:44 to go in the half, but that was as close as the visitors would get.
Over the next four minutes, five different Bruin scored in a 13-0 run that made it 24-5 and turned the game into a runaway. A layup and free throw by Margaret Dowling enabled the Pios to get within 14 at 31-17 with 8:30 left, but another 7-0 run, capped by two Carly Towne free tosses, gave the Bruins their first 20-point lead of 38-17 with 5:34 to play. The Bruins took their largest lead of the half at 47-24 on a Munger charity toss with 1:09 left, and Jami Roos sank a long-range bomb with a second left to give the home team a 50-29 lead at the break.
The second half amounted to little more than a swapping of scores. Munger hit another free throw with 15:31 left to give the Bruins a 26-point advantage of 57-31, the biggest bulge of the game, while the closest the Pios could come again was 14 when Tayler Wang made a steal and layup to make the score 79-65 with 1:40 to go.
George Fox shot a fine .531 (26-49) from the field, including .667 (18-27) in the first half, while limiting Lewis & Clark to a .397 (23-58) percentage. The Pios won the battle of the boards 40-31, but shot only .577 (15-26) from the line, well below their usual .745 average.
Gordon's big game came on 7-11 from the field and 7-8 from the line. Munger finished with 16 points, including 10-18 from the line, three short of the Bruin record for free throw attempts in a game. Roos scored 14, hitting 6-6 from the stripe, and Cusick added 12. Munger blocked five shots, boosting her George Fox career record total to 302, 24th on the all-time D-III chart.
Spence led the Pioneers with a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Kristina Williams scored 12 and Wang 11. Sara Villanueva and Katie Anderson had three assists apiece, and Spence and Wang made three steals each.
NEXT: The entire bracket for the 64-team National Tournament is scheduled to be announced Monday by the NCAA Selection Committee in an online show at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time (2:30 p.m. from NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis). While the Bruins are assured of a playoff spot, the Pioneers must await an at-large bid, but with their high national ranking and losses only to George Fox, a second consecutive post-season berth for them is probably secure.