#25 BLINN WOMEN BEAT PARIS IN OVERTIME

Story by Joe Alberico, Blinn College Sports Information

The way Jeff Jenkins saw it, his team played 10 1/2 great minutes of basketball Thursday afternoon.

Luckily for the 25th-ranked Blinn College women's basketball team, those 10 1/2 minutes proved to be the difference.

The Buccaneers trailed Paris Junior College by eight points with 5:35 remaining in the fourth quarter of their Region XIV showdown, but staged a furious rally to force overtime and dominated the Dragons in the five-minute extra period to secure a 64-55 victory at the Kruse Center in Brenham, Texas.

"I'm having problems figuring our team out right now," said Jenkins, Blinn's head coach. "We're competing defensively, but we had trouble with missed shots, missed free throws, and turnovers. Then in those final five minutes of regulation we made enough plays to send the game to overtime and ended up looking like a completely different team in those final 10 minutes or so."

Neither the Buccaneers (15-4 overall, 3-1 Region XIV) nor the Dragons had much success offensively for most of regulation, instead relying on their respective defenses to make Thursday's bout a nail-biter. 

Paris led 15-11 after the first quarter before Blinn inched ahead 20-19 by halftime. 

The Dragons began pulling away late in the third quarter, using a 20-10 run which carried over into the fourth period and resulted in a 39-30 advantage.

From there, the Bucs began chipping away, including a 7-0 burst that had the hosts within 43-41. Sophomore forward Tocarra Johnson had back-to-back buckets to cap the spurt. 

The Dragons pushed their lead back to five with a 3-pointer, but Blinn stormed back on a 3 from Jonesha Neal followed by a steal and layup in transition from the sophomore guard, and a layup from Johnson.

"We were angry about the way we had been playing the entire game, and I think that kind of led to us picking things up in the fourth quarter," Johnson said. "We know we're better than what we showed today, but I think we started to play our game in the fourth quarter and overtime."

Paris tied the game at 48-all with a jumper in the game's final seconds to force overtime, but Blinn treated the additional five minutes of play as a welcome challenge and took it on head first.

"It was a dogfight for us to even get to overtime with us trailing by nine in the fourth quarter and battling all the way back," freshman guard Jasey Campbell said. "Once we got our energy up and recomposed ourselves, I think we all felt like we were going to go out there and win that game in OT."

Johnson and sophomore guard Ja'Nya Thomas made sure of it, scoring six and five points, respectively, to help Blinn out-score Paris 16-7 in overtime. 

The Bucs never trailed in the extra period, starting with two consecutive buckets from Johnson. The Dragons pulled within one twice, but a 55-54 Blinn edge grew quickly as Johnson sandwiched a pair of layups around a make in the paint from Thomas. A free throw from Neal with 35 seconds to go made it 62-54 and virtually put the game on ice.

"I very rarely address my team in the locker room after a game, but I did today," Jenkins said. "The players seemed down but I explained to them that I've had a lot of seasons where we've only won 12 to 15 games, so enjoy winning. When you win a game, enjoy it, even if you didn't play well. We made just enough plays to win today and we should be proud of our effort."

Johnson paced the Bucs with 20 points, followed by 12 for Neal and eight apiece for Thomas and Campbell.

Blinn's season continues with a region tilt against Panola College at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Kruse Center. KWHI will broadcast the game live beginning with the pregame at 1:45pm.