No. 19 Loyola mounts comeback to defeat WCU

NEW ORLEANS – The 19th-ranked Loyola Wolf Pack women's basketball team only led for less than a minute against William Carey on Saturday, but that proved to be the difference in a 78-77 victory of the Crusaders in The Den. The Pack trailed by as many as 16 points in the second half, but now they'll take a 9-1 overall record and a 4-0 mark in Southern States Athletic Conference play into next week. 
 

Loyola will finish off its 2023 portion of the schedule on the road at Stillman College on Monday, tipping off at 12 p.m. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 
 

William Carey got off to a good start, taking a 10-4 lead through the first three-plus minutes before going up 18-5 with more than three minutes left in the opening quarter. Taylor Thomas hit a 3-pointer to help the Wolf Pack scoring, and Alissa O'Dell made a couple of shots to bring the deficit to 20-14 by the end of the first 10 minutes. The Crusaders started the second quarter with a 15-4 run over the first five minutes, then O'Dell made a couple of more field goals to keep Loyola in it, 37-22. Deniya Thornton and Sandra Cannady helped the Pack finish the first half on an 8-2 run to bring the score to 37-26 by the break. 
 

WCU started the second half by scoring 11 of the first 17 game points in the first three and a half minutes, 48-32, but three straight scores by Thomas, Thornton and Lizzy Ratcliff trimmed the score down to 10, 48-38, with six minutes left in the quarter. An old-fashioned 3-point play by Caitlin Travis kept it a 10-point game, and a 3-pointer by Sydni Tangle made it a six-point game, 53-47, a couple of minutes later. Another and-1 conversion, this time by Bria McClure, cut it to five, but the Crusaders pushed back again to lead 63-52 with 10 minutes to play. 
 

Thornton made it a single-digit deficit once again, 65-57, making a 3-pointer two minutes into the final frame, then a 3 by Thomas brought WCU's lead back down to five, 65-60, with more than seven minutes left. Thornton hit another 3-pointer and Ratcliff made a field goal to get within two, 67-65, as O'Dell eventually gave the Wolf Pack the equalizer, 72-72, with 3:28 left. 
 

Both teams were held scoreless for the next 90 seconds, but Cannady traded shots with a William Carey scorer to keep it tied, 74-74. The Crusaders went up by two with a minute to go and up by three with 17 seconds left on the clock, but Cannady's ninth rebound on the defensive end set up Thomas' game-tying 3-pointer with 9 seconds to go. Tangle recorded a steal after that and Cannady was fouled with less than 2 seconds, making the second of her two attempts to give Loyola the edge. 
 

Pack Facts

• Taylor Thomas tied her season high with 20 points to lead the team. She knocked down three shots from behind the three-point arc, including one to tie the game with less than 10 on the clock. 

• Thomas is now tied for fourth in career assists with with 439, seventh in career steals with 198, and tied for 10th in career three pointers with 139. 

• Deniya Thornton notched the first double-double of her Wolf Pack career with 13 points and 10 rebounds to go along with two steals and a block. 

• Alissa O'Dell set a new career high with 14 points to go along with eight rebounds. 

• Sandra Cannady finished with 12 points and nine rebounds while also leading the team in assists (3) and steals (5). 

• Loyola has won the last six games against William Carey.