Grant and Newsom lead Lady Blazers to Region 24 overtime win

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Lady Trailblazers hosted John A. Logan College Saturday night at the P.E. Complex to tip-off a stretch of three games in three days for the Lady Blazers and came away with a hard fought 77-67 overtime win over the Lady Volunteers.

Vincennes sophomore Laila Grant (Derwood, Md.) and freshman Cherrelle Newsom (Indianapolis, Ind.) led the charge for the Blue and Gold, with the duo combining for 48 points on the night.

Grant led all scorers with 25 points, with a team-high five steals and Newsom finished with 23 points with a team-high five assists on the night.

Vincennes fell behind early in the first quarter, getting off to a slow start and falling behind by as many as eight points before trailing 17-12 at the end of the first quarter.

The Lady Trailblazers fought back in the second quarter, erasing a 10-point deficit to take the lead with 42 seconds left in the half on a Cherrelle Newsom layup.

VU would hold on to that lead the rest of the first half to head into the locker room leading 28-27.

John A. Logan looked to regain control of the game in the third quarter, outscoring the Blazers 24-14 in the period to hold a nine point advantage going into the final 10 minutes of play.

The lead stayed with the Lady Vols until the two-minute mark in the fourth quarter when Vincennes rallied back to take a 62-61 lead.

After a three-pointer by Logan, Laila Grant found open space near the basket to hit a layup and tie the game at 64-all with 11 seconds to play, which ultimately sent this game into overtime.

In the overtime period VU freshman Day'Lynn Thornton (Lafayette, Ind.) seized control of the game, getting the Lady Blazers going early with a pair of layups.

Vincennes' defense held strong in the five-minute overtime period, only allowing the Lady Volunteers to score three points as VU came away with the 77-67 win over John A. Logan.

"We didn't play very well in the first half of the game," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Harry Meeks said. "I think John A. Logan got whatever they wanted offensively. They had a couple of girls who scored a lot of points for them in the first half and we didn't seem to be able to do anything with that."

"When we changed our defense it seemed to slow them down a little," Meeks added. "We just had to work really hard to get this done. It was just one of those things, where when things are going wrong everything seems to go wrong. Then we seemed to get that squared away midway through the third quarter."

"In the fourth quarter, I thought I was going to ware Laila out I was calling her number so much. Day'Lynn had a really big game for us late in the fourth quarter and in to overtime, making a ton of layups that allowed us to keep our lead. Cherrelle played a great game for us. She stayed with it all night and she was a big factor in the game. We just had to keep playing. I think our defense got better as the game went on. This was a good game, a really good game if you want to watch college basketball."

Day'Lynn Thornton was the third Lady Blazer to reach double-figures, finishing with 13 points on six shots and a pair of rebounds.

Sophomores Nina Blade (Milwaukee, Wis.) and Macy Michels (Teutopolis, Ill.) controlled the boards all night, with the pair each finishing with 13 rebounds on the game, with Blade adding three steals and Michels finishing with a team-high four blocks.

"Laila and Cherrelle did a great job for us. Then I had Day'Lynn do a great job of handling the ball for us and when everybody else was getting tired I had her fresh coming off the bench," Meeks said. "I know what I am going to get when I have those three handling the ball. We have some other girls who do a good job handling the ball also, but those three can score the ball also and I just wanted to keep the ball in their hands as much as possible. Then when the defense started to crack a little bit we could take advantage of it. We kept working and finally we got what we wanted and that was good ball penetration, getting layups and hitting shots in the lane."

"This was a good-tight college basketball game," Meeks added. "If you weren't here, I'm sorry, because you missed a great basketball game."

The Lady Trailblazers will hit the road tomorrow, Dec. 12 as VU travels to St. Louis, Mo. to take part in the St. Louis Community College Classic.

Vincennes will face-off against Lewis & Clark College at the St. Louis CC-Forest Park campus Sunday, with the tip-off time set for 12 p.m. eastern.

VU will then have to make another quick turnaround to close out this stretch of games by hosting Wayne County Community College from Detroit, Mich, Monday, Dec. 13 at the P.E. Complex. Tip-off time Monday is set for 5 p.m. eastern.

"It is going to be quite an effort to get three wins in three days," Meeks said. "The reason this stretch came to be was because I was having a hard time making the schedule. We're playing 28 games this season instead of 30 and I like to play as close to 30 games as possible and this was the trade-off of getting our 28th game was to play these three back-to-back. We've got some work to do and I hope we can stand up to it."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (77): Nina Blade 1-8 3-4 5, Macy Michels 1-3 2-2 4, Trinitee Harris 2-8 1-2 5, Cherrelle Newsom 8-17 2-2 23, Laila Grant 8-18 7-7 25, Chanice Willis 0-3 0-0 0, Day'Lynn Thornton 5-6 3-4 13, Candela Lascorz 1-2 0-0 2, Elena Aznar 0-1 0-0, Kylee Shelton 0-7 0-0 0, Anete Bluma 0-3 0-0 0, Team 26-76 18-21 77.

John A. Logan – 17  10  24  13  3 – 67

VU (9-4, 4-0) – 12  16  14  22  13 – 77

Three-point goals: VU 7 (Newsom 5, Grant 2). Rebounds: VU 42 (Michels 13, Blade 13). Assists: VU 13 (Newsom 5). Steals: VU 13 (Grant 5). Blocked shots: VU 6 (Michels 4). Turnovers: VU 16. Personal Fouls: VU 13. Fouled out: None.