PARADISE ISLAND, The Bahamas – Kitty Henderson scored a career-high 24 points to lead the Columbia women's basketball team to a, 69-62, victory over Ball State on Monday at the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis. The annual tournament is being played from Imperial Arena at Atlantis Paradise Island.
Columbia (6-2) used an 18-0 second-half run to seize control and held off Ball State (5-2) down the stretch. Trailing 45-40, the Lions scored the final 10 points of the third quarter and opened the fourth with the first eight.
Marija Avlijas and
Riley Weiss drained a couple of treys to start the final period before a
Susie Rafiu layup forced the Cardinals to call for time facing a 13-point deficit.
Ball State, the No.1 ranked team in the
CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25, did not go down quietly. They rallied to make it a five-point game, 63-58, with less than 2:00 remaining but Henderson willed her team over the finish line. She sealed the game with 30 seconds on the clock, coming up with a steal at midcourt and finishing at the rim to make the lead insurmountable.
One last free throw in the final second pushed Henderson to a new career-high.
"I just need to have that [scoring] mindset from the beginning," said Henderson when asked about developing into more of a scorer this season. "Honestly, I'm very lucky to have teammates and coaches that continually tell me that in my ear 'Keep looking for you. Keep looking for you,' and then other things open up from that."
Henderson added six rebounds, four assists and a game-high four steals to her tally.
Riley Weiss (16) and
Cecelia Collins (11) joined the Aussie in double figures scoring. Collins, who was named Ivy League Player of the Week earlier in the day, dished out a game-high seven assists.
Ball State put five in double figures but only had two points off the bench. Meanwhile, the Lions had a combined 11 in bench production from first-year Maria Arrebola and sophomore transfer
Marija Avlijas.
Columbia delivered the first punch and won the first quarter 17-14. Henderson had her team's opening six points and Weiss finished off an 8-0 run that answered Ball State's 5-0 start.
The Cardinals swung back in the second quarter, at one point hitting seven consecutive field goals to build their largest lead of the night, 31-21. Weiss stopped the bleeding at the 1:08 mark and Henderson followed to pull Columbia back within six at the intermission.
The intensity of the game heightened in the third quarter and the Lions rose to the moment. Henderson was the catalyst, scoring six straight Columbia points to open the run that put her team back in front. It was part of a 24-3 scoring stretch that included the game-changing 18-0 run.
Columbia returns home to New York on Tuesday after going 2-1 at the Battle 4 Atlantis. They'll prepare for their next test against No. 13/14 Duke, which takes place Saturday at 12 noon inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. The game will be televised nationally on the ACC Network.
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