Erin Zahariev scored five of John Carroll's final 14 points to help secure a consolation game victory
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Whitney Hamilton scored 16 points and Rachael Price added 14 as John Carroll rallied from a poor start to win the consolation game of the Penn State-Behrend Tournament by a 77-64 score over the host school Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania.
John Carroll overcame an 11-0 deficit in the first 2:35 of the contest to win its first game of the 2007-08 campaign.
The Blue Streaks trailed by 11 points on two occasions in the opening half. The first was the 11-0 start, the second was a 37-26 disadvantage created by a lay-up from PSU-Behrend's Kayla O'Connor with 4:01 remaining. John Carroll was able to cut the dificit down to 42-36 at the half thanks to scoring the final four points before the buzzer.
The Lions would go back up by eight points (46-38) by making two of their first three shots of the second half. But over the final 18:52 of the game, JCU held PSU-Behrend to just two made field goals in 22 attempts.
The Blue Streaks would make the Lions pay for their offensive shortcomings. JCU tied the game for the first time at 46-46 on a Price lay-up at the 14:58 mark, then took the lead for good on a Hamilton lay-up that made the score 55-53 with 11:19 on the clock.
Hamilton's lay-up was part of an 11-0 run that turned put John Carroll ahead, 61-53.
The issue was still in doubt when PSU-Behrend's Natalie Engel made a pair of free throws to cut John Carroll's lead to one points, 63-62, with 4:31 to play. Keyed by five points from Erin Zahariev, the Blue Streaks responded by scoring 14 of the final 16 points of the contest.
John Carroll (1-1), which had a tought shooting night against Juniata Friday, had a much better effort on this day. The Blue Streaks were 31-69 (.449) from the field, including 8-19 (.421) from beyond the three-poiunt arc.
Hamilton was named to the all-tournament team.
PSU-Behrend (0-2) was paced by 16 points from O'Connor. The Lions made 18-30 (.600) from the field in the first half, but just 4-25 (.160) in the second half. In sharp contrast to John Carroll, the host squad was 0-9 from three-point range
