Jan 21, 2017 5 min read

CALIFORNIA – It is doubtful you can find a basketball game that would have a crazier ending than the one that took place Saturday afternoon between the women’s basketball teams at California University and Mercyhurst.

With the game tied 65-65 and under a minute to play, Vulcans senior point guard Miki Glenn committed back-to-back turnovers to open the door for the Lakers, who took a one-point lead on a Natalie Piaggesi free-throw with 19.3 seconds remaining.

What happened next was strange.

With the Vulcans about to inbound, the horn sounded and a Mercyhurst sub came onto the floor. No one came out.

The Vulcans turned the ball over, but Mercyhurst had six players on the floor. Instead of calling a technical foul or giving the Vulcans the ball back, the officials ruled the Lakers would possess the ball with under 10 seconds remaining.

But Vulcans’ guard Abbey Sporio stole the inbounds pass, made a layup, was fouled and converted the subsequent free-throw with five seconds remaining to give California a dramatic 68-66 victory on an afternoon where they didn’t play very well at the Convocation Center.

“The funny thing is that we messed up on the final play,” Sporio said. “I was supposed to switch with Morgan (Jennings) on the screen, but we just stayed on who we were guarding. Once I stole the ball the first instinct was to pass it to Seairra (Barrett), but I said to myself that I’m taking this and it worked out.”

Sporio, who finished with 12 points, was one of three California players who scored in double figures.

Glenn led the way with 21 points, including making 13 of 16 free throw attempts. Barrett also finished in double figures with 15.

Cal (12-1, 18-1) trailed 53-46 entering the fourth quarter, but put together an impressive 17-0 run at the start for a 62-53 advantage. Before that, the last Vulcans lead was 2-0.

Sporio, who entered the fourth quarter 1 of 7 from the floor, played a big role in the run.

She tied the game at 53 with a layup and hit a three-point shot and another layup to extend the Cal lead.

“We didn’t play our best game,” Sporio said. “We didn’t shoot well and we just had to stick with it. Thankfully, I was able to turn things around in the fourth quarter.”

Once the Vulcans took the lead, they had to withstand another punch from the Lakers, who scored the next eight points to make it a one possession game.

Most of the damage from the Lakers was done by Angela Heintz, who finished with a team-high 21 points.

“They are a great team that starts five seniors,” California head coach Jess Strom said. “We knew they had another run in them and we knew they would come out hard against us. The good thing for us was it was nice to win a close game. We haven’t played many so I wanted to see how we would react in a close game.”

What made the win even bigger for the sixth-ranked Vulcans is that with Edinboro’s loss to Slippery Rock earlier in the day, Cal claimed a share of first place in the PSAC West, as the Vulcans and Mercyhurst (11-2, 16-3) came into the contest with just one conference loss.

In addition, Cal has won all 17 meetings against Mercyhurst since the Lakers joined the PSAC.

The Vulcans got off to a terrible start from the floor, making just 4 of 16 attempts in the first quarter as the Lakers built a 19-12 lead. California shot just 30.8 percent from the floor in the first half and 35.8 percent for the game.

“It was a tough day,” Strom said. “We eventually started getting layups, which helped. Shots started falling in the fourth. We needed to pick up our energy as a team and I thought we brought that at both ends of the floor in the fourth. We didn’t have that in the first half.”

The second quarter was more of the same for the Vulcans.

Mercyhurst’s Natalie Piaggesi’s layup capped a 13-4 run, which gave the Lakers a 23-12 lead, their biggest of the half.

Piaggesi was tough for the Vulcans to deal with all afternoon, scoring 14 of her 18 points in the first half.

It wasn’t a clean game as both teams had problems taking care of the basketball. Mercyhurst committed 31 turnovers on the day while Cal had 18.

The pressure the Vulcans applied to the Mercyhurst ball handlers helped them get back in the game and ultimately come away with a hard-fought win.

“I thought they handled our trap pretty well,” Strom said. “A senior team like they are isn’t going to panic. But we could apply a lot of pressure defensively and force enough mistakes. Playing great defense eventually helped our offense get going.”

The Vulcans chipped away at the early deficit, mostly from the free-throw line, where they knocked down 11 of 14 attempts in the first 20 minutes and went into the locker room trailing only 29-28 at the half.

Mercyhurst didn’t let up in the second half as the Lakers opened the third quarter on a 10-4 run and put together a 7-0 spurt late to take a 50-39 lead. Cal chipped away and only trailed 53-46 after three.

“It was not our best game,” Strom said. “But I loved our fight. We had our backs against the wall and we battled until the final whistle. That’s something I will take away from this one.”