Kent State Claims Its Third Championship Title With A Win Over Ball State
March 9, 2002
CLEVELAND -- Jamie Rubis matched her season-high with 19 points and keyed a 25-2 second half run to lead the top-seeded Kent State University women's basketball team to its third Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament title with a 73-59 win over second-seeded Ball State University in the 2002 Kraft MAC Tournament Championship game at Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Tournament MVP Andrea Csaszar added 17 points, 13 rebounds and six blocked shots for the Golden Flashes (20-10), who earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in school history. Csaszar finished the tournament with a record 20 blocked shots in three games.
Trailing 45-40 with 12:41 remaining in the game, Kent State scored 14 unanswered points to take a nine-point advantage, 54-45, with 6:14 left. After a free throw by Ball State's (23-7) Amy Fuller, the Flashes put the game away with an 11-1 run to take their biggest lead at 18 points, 65-47, with just under three minutes to go.
Rubis tallied 14 points during Kent State's run and scored 16 of her 19 points in the second half. Valerie Zona (12), Kate Miller (11), and Katalin Kollat (10) also scored in double figures for Kent State, which was playing in its seventh straight MAC Championship. The Flashes won the tournament in 1998 and 2000 but lost last year's final in overtime to the University of Toledo.
"Two days after the Toledo loss last year, coach made a comment that one way or another we're going back to the NCAA Tournament," said Rubis, a senior forward who missed all of last season due to an illness. "We all remember that meeting. It was still in our heart that we wanted to get back to the tournament."
Johna Goff scored 18 points for Ball State, who was playing in its first MAC title game. The Cardinals struggled offensively, shooting a season-low 27.6 percent from the field and went over 10 minutes in the second half without a basket.
Kent State led by as many as seven points in the first half at 23-16 before Ball State responded with a 10-2 spurt to take a brief one-point lead on Shala Crook's lay-up following a steal. Csaszar answered with a lay-up of her own to put Kent State back on top. The Flashes led by one, 30-29, at the break.
Goff hit two three-pointer early in the second half and Tamara Bowie also added a three-pointer at give Ball State a five-point lead before Kent State's big run.
Crook scored 12 points and Bowie added 10 for the Cardinals, who attempted a Tournament record 41 three-pointers, hitting 11 for 24.4%.
The win is the sixth in a row overall for Kent State, which becomes the first MAC school to win 20 games in a season seven straight years.
Zona, Miller, and Bowie joined Csaszar on the All-Tournament Team along with Northern Illinois' Jennifer Youngblood.
