SAN ANTONIO — Since the beginning of the season the Minnesota State women’s basketball team had a reminder in its locker room of its only goal of the season.
Coach Pam Gohl put a picture of San Antonio – the host site of the NCAA Division II Elite Eight – in the Mavericks’ locker room, and making a trip to southern Texas has been the lone goal since.
“We've been talking about San Antonio since September when coach posted that sign on in our locker room,” said MSU forward Alex Andrews. “We've been pumped since that first win and we're just having fun and we still have a lot of basketball to show.”
Heather Johnson paced the Mavericks with 25 points Wednesday against Alaska-Anchorage in the semifinals. And for Johnson, her scoring couldn’t have come at a better time with the title game against Franklin Pierce slated for Friday.
Johnson was 5 of 7 from the 3-point line Wednesday and 8 of 10 from the field, a night after scoring eight points on just 3 of 10 shooting.
“Tuesday I stood a lot and [Wednesday] I came off screens a little bit better and was more aggressive,” Johnson said. “That allowed me to get my shot off a little bit quicker.”
The Mavericks will need Johnson to make a similar contribution Friday, but need their defense to step up and stop the Leedham sisters.
Johannah Leedham, a 5-foot-11 junior forward, averages 23.3 points per game and 6.1 rebounds per game. Her sister Jennifer, a senior, averages 11.9 points per game. The Ravens – a one-seed – dropped Delta State 58-39 to reach Friday’s final. The Ravens have lost just one game since New Year’s and started the season ranked No. 6 in the nation, but are 14th nationally in the most recent poll.
Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Bill Greehey Arena, and will air live on ESPN2.
“We’ve watched a lot of teams have their last few games over the past few weeks and our seniors, they don’t want that,” Gohl said. “They want to win. They want to go out on a winning note and they want to celebrate all the way back to Mankato.”
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Just curious Chow what you think the outcome of tonite is going to be? What do the mavs have to do to win this game? Oh yeah hope you were watching PTI (3/27) when Tony Kornheiser gave a shout out to the MAVS basketball team.
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