On Jan. 29, the Lane Community College’s women’s basketball team tipped off against the Linn-Benton Roadrunners. The Titans are in Third Place — two places higher than the Roadrunners in the Southern Region.
This season, Linn-Benton has been riding a rollercoaster of wins and losses. Their first three games in January were losses to regional opponents. Bouncing back, though, LBCC won their following four games giving them momentum for the match against LCC.
Out of the nine teams in the South Region, only four will advance to the playoffs for the Northwest Athletic Conference Championship game to be played in Everett Washington March 14-15.
LCC entered the game with a single win ahead of LBCC and because there’s only one month left before the playoffs, every game will be between regional teams.
The Titans tipped off at Titan Court for this regional matchup.
The first quarter proved to be a challenge for the Titans as they were only able to make five of twenty-two shot attempts. They went into the second quarter down by six.
Turning the tables in the second quarter, Lane made 46.2% of their shots. The pressure grew on LBCC as their lead shrank before their eyes.
With only 33 seconds away from halftime, #33 Allison Killion for LBCC aggressively shoved LCC’s Guard, Madison Ficek, drawing a technical foul. Ficek made one of her two attempts at the line giving Lane the lead.
The Roadrunners’ coach was audibly frustrated as they went to halftime down by one with a score of 25-24.
The start of the second half looked as if the Titans were going to run away with the game. As their defense restricted the Roadrunners offense from scoring for the first two and a half minutes of play, the Titan’s quickly realized LBCC would not go down without a fight.
With an offensive surge, the Roadrunners managed to make the same number of points as the Titans in the third quarter.
Lane held onto a one-point lead as the third quarter came to a close.
When the fourth quarter started, the crowd of roughly 75 people became much more noticeable as the home fans cheered.
The Titans fired up as they made a series of back to back shots giving them an eight-point lead with only seven minutes left in the game.
LBCC tried their best to dig themselves out of their deficit, but it was too little too late.
Lane won their third game in a row with an end score of 60-59.
Lane’s Women now has a record of 17-4 earning them third place in the South. With momentum and a winning record on their side, the players have their eyes set on the prize.
“The main goal is to win NWAC,” Starting Guard and Forward, Megan Fossen said.
“We have that always in the back of our heads; we are going to make it all the way.”
