By JOE GUZMAN

Senior Reporter

April Kidd scored 16 of her team leading 22 points in the second half as the Oakland University women’s basketball team held on for a 73-66 first-round win over UMKC. 

Entering the second half with an 11-point lead, and stretching it to 16 with just over nine minutes to play, OU looked in full control of this one.  

But teams don’t roll over in March, and UMKC came firing back, chipping away at OU’s lead on the pressure of the team’s full-court defense, led by All-Summit League guard Chazny Morris’ 24 points and seven rebounds. 

After the game, head coach Beckie Francis credited the win to the experience of playing close games in past tournaments. 

“We like close games in the tournament because in the history of Oakland women’s tournament game, all of the games have been close, we really showed mental toughness and composure when we needed it,” she said. 

With OU reeling at just under two minutes to go, UMKC came to within four after a Morris layup and two free-throws by guard LeAndrea Thomas.

But it was just a case of too little too late for the Kangaroos, as a determined Jessica Pike drove into the paint, hit a floater and sealed the game for OU. Pike may have not padded her stats on this night, but she was there to hit key shots when the team needed them the most. 

As was UMKC crawling their was back into the game, pulling within nine with just over three minutes left, Pike made it 68-56 on a hit a critical three, which would prove to be the winner. 

Pike would finish the game with 16 points on 6-13 shooting. But the night would belong to Kidd, as the guard was all over the floor throughout the game, leading the team in every statistical category while finishing with eight rebounds, seven assists and four steals. 

“We expected to come into this tournament having to play close games, and we practice it everyday in practice, so there is nothing we can’t handle,” Kidd said. 

Team defense proved to be the overriding factor for the win, as OU finished the game with 10 steals, as the Grizzlies scored 17 points off of 25 UMKC turnovers.  

Coach Francis said that it is sometimes worse to play so far ahead because you start “playing not to lose and not to foul” and while thinking about that you start losing the lead and committing fouls. She commended Pike’s timely shooting and the team’s determination. 

“We could have kept fouling and missing shots and all kid of gross things could have happened,” she said. “But instead, we’re sitting here with a nice seven point win and we are playing on Monday and that’s all we care about.”

Check back Monday at 3:30 p.m. EST for live-blog coverage of OU’s second-round match-up against North Dakota State/Western Illinois.