Lady Miners top Hawks, get back to .500 in GLVC

Josie Polk

For a while Thursday night, it appeared that the road back to the .500 mark in GLVC play for the Lady Miners was about to hit a pothole.

Suddenly, reserve guard Josie Polk sparked a run near the end of the first half and the Lady Miners took off from there for a 77-64 victory over Rockhurst at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.

The victory, coupled with Southern Indiana's double overtime loss to Southern Illinois Edwardsville, moved UMR into a three-way tie for third place in the Great Lakes Valley Conference's West Division. The Lady Miners, Southern Indiana and Quincy, who was idle Thursday, are all 8-8 in league play.

Polk scored a career-high 10 points, but seven of them came in the span of a minute in the latter stages of the first half as UMR outscored the Hawks 15-6 to finish the first half. Polk's first points of the game at the 3:43 mark gave the Lady Miners the lead for good at 28-27 in a contest in which they had trailed for a majority of the first half.

Polk scored again moments later on a putback of her own miss and hit a subsequent free throw, then scored again on a jumper after a Rockhurst turnover to give UMR a 33-27 lead. The Lady Miners led 41-33 at the half.

The Lady Miners outscored the Hawks 17-7 over the first seven-plus minutes of the second half to build an 18-point lead and cruised from there, building the lead to as many as 22 at one point.

UMR (15-9, 8-8 GLVC) had five players finish in double figures, with Tamara McCaskill leading the way with 14 points. UMR also got 11 points apiece from Nicole Dierking and Jennifer Pena, while Polk and Katie Bunge finished with 10 points each. The Lady Miners also won the rebounding battle by a 39-29 margin and forced 26 Rockhurst turnovers.

The Lady Miners finished the game shooting 40.9 percent from the field, but racheted up the defense in the second half after watching the Hawks (8-16, 2-14 GLVC) connect on 14-of-21 from the field in the first 20 minutes. UMR held the Hawks to 38 percent after the intermission.

UMR will host Drury (17-7, 11-5 GLVC) in its final home game of the season Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Fans who wear green apparel to the game will get a $2 discount on a ticket to the game as part of "Green Day" at UMR.