Box Score

John Carroll threw the proverbial monkey off its back by earning a hard-fought 67-62 over Mount Union Saturday afternoon to post its first Ohio Athletic Conference victory of the 2007-08 season. 

The Blue Streaks started slow, as Mount Union's Alicia Williams score eight of her team's first 12 points of the game as the Purple Raiders built a 12-4 lead over the first eight minutes. 

"Williams is a nice player and our focus on defense was to shut her down," said John Carroll head coach Kristie Maravalli. "I think we eventually did a pretty good job."

Williams led her team with 16 total points, but only managed eight more points after those opening eight minutes.

John Carroll would chip away at the lead, and tied the game with 5:14 to play in the first half with two free-throws from Alex D'Amico. Lianna Jennings would then make three back-to-back shots to increase their lead to five, 26-21.

In the final two minutes of the half, Laura Gruber stepped it up defensively with two blocks and Price ended the period with a three-pointer. The score was 32-24 at the half in favor of John Carroll.

Shortly after JCU would push the lead to its largest margin of the game at 36-24 on a lay-up by Erin Zahariev, the Purple Raiders would begin to claw their way back in to the contest. When Tessa Pohovey nailed a three-pointer with 8:51 showing ont he second half, she caped a 24-11 run over a nine-and-a-half minute stretch that gave Mount Union its first second half lead at 48-47.

The lead would change hands several more times before John Carroll took the lead for good. With the score tied at 55-55, Jennings would hit the go-ahead jumper with 4:33 to play, after which Whitney Hamilton hit a lay-up and a three-point shot back-to-back to push JCU's lead to 62-57 with 2:53 remaining.

The Purple Raiders last gasp came when Ellie Geiger's lay-up cut the margin to 64-62 with 25 seconds left, but Jennings and Price went 3-4 from the free throw line down the stretch for the final points of the game.

Maravalli was impressed with her team's effort in the final two minutes of the game as JCU held on to a short lead and win a close hard fought OAC game.

"In the last two minutes of the game, we hit shots we needed to make and we limited Mount Union to one shot," said Maravalli. Since we have been on this streak, we have had a scoring cushion at the end of games, so it was good to pull out a close one."

John Carroll (6-5, 1-3 OAC) was paced by Jennings, who led all scorers with a collegiate high 18 points to go with five rebounds, and two assists. Zahariev finished with 14 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Hamilton added 12 points to the JCU cause.

Mount Union (5-7, 2-3 OAC), which lost for the fourth time in its last five games, received 16 points from Williams and 10 from Ashley Ross. The Purple Raiders struggled at the line, making just 19-35 (.543) compared to John Carroll's 17-24 (.708) effort.