Tennessee Tech women took on Little Rock in the Ohio Valley Conference Championship game over the weekend winning the first its first championship game since 2000 with a final score of the game was 54-46.
Maaliya Owens said, “I think Little Rock defended our three very well. They were on every catch, and I really think that they were pressuring us and trying to take that away.”
Overall, this season Tech’s overall record is 22-9 with a conference record of 13-5. At home, Tech was 12-2; away, they were 7-7; and at neutral sites they were 3-0 with a win streak of seven. Overall, Tech played 31 games with an average score of 69.1 points per game. Tech also had a 43.1% for field goals, 33.3% three points per game, 75.8% free throws, with 34.7 rebounds per game and 15.7 assist per game.
Jada Guinn said, “Playing against Little Rock is tough. They were being aggressive so what you must do is be aggressive back. Every time I saw that they were not covering the open post I made sure to take advantage of that and so I was just hitting them and had six assists on the night because of it.”
Tech had to beat SIUE in the quarterfinals to move onto the semifinals. Then Tech beat SIUE with a 76-62 score. Tech was ranked third and SIUE was ranked sixth. Then, Tech had to beat Eastern Illinois to get to the championship game against Little Rock.
Tech ended up beating Eastern Illinois 66-61. Tech was ranked third still while Eastern Illinois was ranked second. Taking on Little Rock, ranked number one, Tech beat the team in the OVC championship game. Little Rock was ranked number one while Tech was still ranked third in the tournament.
Head coach Kim Rosamond said, “I thought you saw the heart of a champion today in our players and it started three days ago with SIUE. Our motto this season has been nothing but net.”
The OVC tournament MVP was Jada Guinn. The entire OVC champion team is Jada Guinn, Kiera Hill, Maaliya Owens, and Anna Walker. These were the best players during not just the season but the OVC championship game. Tech is an NCAA automatic qualifier for March Madness. Selection Sunday will be March 12 at 8 p.m. on the CBS network. The first four games will be held on Wednesday, March 15, and Thursday, March 16, of the March Madness tournament.
