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Posted: Mar 08, 2015

Women's Basketball Claims GLIAC Championship!

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HOUGHTON, Mich. — Michigan Tech earned the 2015 GLIAC Women's Basketball Tournament Championship today with a 68-52 victory over Ashland. The top-seeded Huskies got 18 points from Kelli Guy and 26 points from their bench to improve to 16-0 at home and 27-2 overall.

Tech senior Jillian Ritchie was named GLIAC Tournament MVP, while Guy and Danielle Blake also earned spots on the All-Tournament team.

With the region's top team, Lewis, losing in its conference tournament semifinal last night, Tech has a shot to host the NCAA Midwest Regional this coming weekend.

The pairings and host site will be announced via a live webstream video tonight at 10 p.m. on NCAA.com.

Tech's seventh GLIAC title was won with stretches of stellar defense. The hosts held AU to just eight points through the first 10 minutes of the game and just three points over a four-minute span late in the half to grab a 35-23 advantage.

AU's Laina Snyder hit back-to-back layups before halftime to pull the Eagles back to within 35-27 at intermission.

The visitors scored the first basket of the second half, but didn't get another field goal until the 13-minute mark. Guy buried two 3-pointers during that time for a 46-31 advantage.

Guy's third trey of the half and sixth of the game came at the 10:27 mark, putting the margin up to 52-33. The spread increased to as many as 22 on Kerry Gardner's triple and free throws from Kylie Moxley with 8:17 to play.

Ashland cut it to 12 with 2:08 to play, but Moxley added another jumper right away to stop the run. Tech hit five free throws and had three offensive rebounds in the final 90 seconds to close out the program's seventh GLIAC Tournament title.

"Awesome team win today," said Tech coach Kim Cameron. "Every single person on our team had an opportunity to step up and play today, and we did it as a team. That's all you can ask for as a coach. We protected our home floor against three really good teams this week."

Guy's game-high 18 points came on 6-of-11 shooting from behind the arc. She also added five rebounds and three assists. Brenna Heise turned in 10 points and five rebounds. Blake notched nine points, six rebounds, six assists and four steals.

Moxley, Gardner (six points, three steals) and Emily Harrison (six points) all had big contributions off the bench.

The key stats in the game were probably assists and turnovers. Tech had 21 assists on 23 field goals while committing 11 turnovers. Ashland had 21 turnovers and just nine assists. The Huskies' defense came up with a season-high 16 steals in the contest.

Ritchie had five points, four rebounds and two assists today. The senior, paired with a 27-point, nine rebound performance in a GLIAC semifinal win over Grand Valley State, was picked as the tournament MVP.

"I'm really proud of my teammates," she said. "I didn't have the best shooting day today, but everybody else stepped up, and that's what we've done all season.

"We put another banner up today, and it's an incredible feeling. Tomorrow we're going to get back to work because there's more to accomplish."

Field goal percentages favored the Huskies at 42 percent compared to 39 percent for AU. The Eagles claimed a 36-34 rebounding edge.

Michigan Tech has earned an automatic berth into the NCAA Midwest Regional which will likely start next Friday (Mar. 13). Pairings and host site will be announced tonight on NCAA.com and reposted on MichiganTechHuskies.com as soon as they become available.

Notes: Snyder, Taylor Woods (Ashland) and Brionna Barnett (Grand Valley State) joined Ritchie, Blake and Guy on the All-Tournament Team … Blake was a GLIAC All-Tournament Team selection a year ago as well … Tech is 22-5 all-time at the SDC Gym in GLIAC Tournament games … The Huskies have won their last 18 straight home postseason games (GLIAC and NCAA Tournament combined).