LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Carly Hicks (Portland, OR) drew a foul and made both free throws to tie the game at 69-69 with 0.3 left forcing overtime at Occidental College Saturday afternoon. In extra-time, though, the Tigers outscored the University of Redlands Women's Basketball team (9-9, 4-5) 9-2 handing the U of R a 78-71 loss in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) competition.
Despite a 6-0 early hole, AJ Wick (Henderson, NV) made a jumper to kickstart an 8-2 run that tied the game at eight. During the run Wick had six points and Leila Hosn (Seattle, WA) added another bucket.
With just over a minute to play in the first quarter Hosn made a jumper in the paint to extend the Bulldog lead to five, 14-9, extending the run to 14-3. The Tigers scored the final basket of the quarter as it was 14-11 Redlands after 10 minutes.
Occidental took the lead for the first time since the opening minutes of the game at the 8:03 mark of the second. They held onto the small advantage for the remainder of the half. Redlands, though, made a late run. They were down by six, 33-27, with 2:12 to play before Hosn and Wick both scored to take Redlands into the half down two, 33-31.
In the opening minute and a half of the second half the teams stayed within a possession of each other before Hosn drew two fouls and converted all four of her free throws to help the Bulldogs go on a 6-2 run swinging the momentum and giving UR a 38-37 lead that came on a Colbi Zorich (Kenmore, WA) layup.
Neither team was able to extend the lead past three until the Tigers scored ten of the next thirteen points over the final 2:39 of the third quarter holding their largest lead of the game at eight, 58-50.
Redlands slowly chipped away at the deficit in the final period, pulling within one with 4:04 on the clock before Occidental pushed it to six with 2:05 to play.
Over the final 1:47 Hosn, Zorich, and Wick scored five unanswered points to make it a one-point game, 68-67, with four seconds remaining.
After a foul by Hosn with less than two seconds, the Tigers made one-of-two free throws before Rich Murphy called a 30-second timeout and advanced the ball into the front court with 1.8 seconds left.
Out of the timeout Redlands in-bounded to Hicks who got a look at the basket from behind the arc and missed it, but a whistle for a foul as time expired put 0.3 seconds back on the clock.
After discussion, however, it was decided that Hicks' shot was a two, not a three, so she got two free throws, which she made to send the game into OT.
Wick tied the game at the 3:37 mark in overtime, but those were the lone points of the five-minute period as the Bulldogs lost their fourth in-a-row.
Hosn continued her hot stretch offensively with a career-high 25 points. She has now scored double figures in five of the last six games.
Wick had 21 points and 10 rebounds. It is her third 20-10 game of the season and her second in three games.
Redlands will look to snap their losing streak against Caltech on Wednesday, January 29 at 7:00 p.m. inside Currier Gym.
