Phylicia Jones finished with a team-high 12 points and had five rebounds against Delaware State.
Boxscore
RALEIGH, N.C. (March 13, 2008)-If Morgan State was to return to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament championship game like it did last year, the road was not going to be easy. In order to return to the title game Morgan likely would have to face crosstown rival Coppin State in a semifinal rematch from last season.
However, before any of that would be possible, the Lady Bears had to get past their nemesis, the Delaware State Hornets. The same Hornets squad which defeated Morgan State in last season’s title game and knocked the Lady Bears out of the 1993 tournament quarterfinals.
But like last year’s title game and the previous two games this season, Delaware State was quicker and more aggressive and just too much for the Lady Bears, thus ending Morgan's tournament hopes for the second straight season.
Jameka Smith scored a game-high 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting and tallied a game-high four steals, while Katreem Palmer added 12 points and Ashlee Burbage came off the bench to chip in with 12 points to lead the third-seeded Hornets to a 67-49 victory over No. 6 Morgan State in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference quarterfinal game on Thursday afternoon at the RBC Center.
The victory completed a three-game sweep for the Hornets (18-13) this season and was their fourth consecutive win over Morgan State and upped their all-time MEAC Tournament record to 4-1 over the Lady Bears. It also marked the eighth straight game that Delaware State has held the Lady Bears to under 50 points, including all three meetings this season, where it held Morgan State to 49 points.
For Morgan State (19-12) it marked a bitter end to what was a record breaking season. The Lady Bears set the school record for regular season wins on the Division I level with 17 and the 19 victories set the school’s all-time Division I record for wins, surpassing the 18 wins the team recorded last season.
Phylicia Jones, who had a good two tournament games, led the Lady Bears with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including a career-high two three-pointers on 2-for-2 shooting from behind the arc. Corin Adams added nine points on 4-of-14 shooting and recorded just one steal.
Both teams came out tight and took some time to get into a flow of the game. Delaware State seemed to find its rhythm first, but Morgan State used a mini 4-0 run to tie the game at 8-8 on a layup by Tamara Rogers with 15:07 left in the first half. The Hornets then scored the next 12 points, while holding Morgan State scoreless for nearly 10 minutes, until a layup by Theresa Davis cut the deficit to 20-10. Delaware State would extend its lead to 12 points again and took a 25-15 advantage at the break.
Delaware State began the second half on a 17-8 run to extend the lead to 42-23 with 15:07 remaining and used an 11-4 spurt over a six minute span to take its largest lead of the game at 64-44 at the 2:19 mark.
Delaware State shot 38 percent (24-of-62) from the floor and connected on 16-of-22 free throws (72 percent), while Morgan State was 20-for-55 (36 percent) from the field and shot 50 percent (5-of-10) from the charity stripe.
The Hornets also outrebounded Morgan State, 45-35, with Palmer pulling down a game-high 11 boards to record her fourth double-double of the season. The Lady Bears committed 23 turnovers, 10 of which were Delaware State steals.
The Hornets will now face No. 2 Coppin State on Friday, March 14, in a MEAC semifinal game at 2:30 p.m.
