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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A battle of blues broke out Thursday at Middle Tennessee's Murphy Center, as the Lady Raiders welcomed Kentucky for a renewal of what's become a yearly matchup.
After trailing by double digits in the third quarter, MT (8-5) scratched and clawed for a thrilling 62-57, come-from-behind victory in front of 4,209 partisan fans. It was its fifth win in the 19-game series all-time against UK (8-6) and first since taking down the 6th-ranked Wildcats at home in the 2011-12 season.
"We didn't play one of our better games ... but we gutted it out," MT Head Coach Rick Insell said. "It's got to give our kids confidence heading into conference play."
A Kentucky jumper with 2:34 left in the third quarter put the road team up 10 points, and it looked like the Wildcats had snatched all the momentum and would cruise from there.
The Lady Raiders weren't done, though.
Behind senior leaders Abbey Sissom and Rebecca Reuter, they stormed back with a 16-2 run to close the third quarter and start the fourth and grabbed a 50-46 lead with 5:33 remaining.
The teams traded baskets over the next few minutes, and as the clock ticked under a minute the score stood knotted at 54.
After Reuter committed her fifth and final foul, sophomore Charity Savage entered the game and immediately made her presence felt.
Savage, who didn't see the floor in the first half, knocked down a layup to put MT up 56-54 with just 50 seconds remaining, and after a pair of Katie Collier free throws and Kentucky 3-pointer, it was time to see the ice water in the sophomore's veins.
Savage stepped to the line with Middle Tennessee up 58-57 and calmly knocked down a pair, then followed with a crucial defensive rebound and another two makes from the line to seal the win.
Savage, who normally is a guard but was tasked at playing forward, finished with eight points and two rebounds in just five minutes played.
"Right now, I'm at the guard position, but [Insell] wasn't happy with how the posts were producing on offense," Savage said. "It was kind of a lot of pressure, but I knew I had to do it and tried my best."
The Lady Raiders didn't get out of the gates well offensively, missing their first seven shots from the field and turning the ball over six times in the game's first six minutes as UK built an 11-2 lead.
A 7-0 scoring run fueled by stingy defense got Middle Tennessee back into it, though, and Sissom made sure the Wildcats didn't get too far ahead.
Sissom, whose 13.8 points per game pace the team, scored five of the seven points over the run and 14 of the team's 20 points in the first half as she willed her teammates to pick it up.
Sissom backed up 28- and 22-point outings against Canisius and USC in the UTRGV Holiday Classic with 22 on 6-of-11 shooting, including 5-of-7 from downtown and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line. She was also tasked at guarding Kentucky leading scorer Maci Morris, who went into the game averaging 16.2 points per outing but finished with 13.
It was the first time in Sissom's career she scored 20 or more points in three straight games.
"I'm a shooter, and coach tells me all the time shooters have to knock down shots," Sissom said. "Our offense wasn't flowing like it normally does, but I knew it was going to come at some point. I was just trying to keep us in the game."
With Sissom pushing Middle Tennessee to find its way offensively and looking for help, Reuter responded.
The Cleveland, Tenn., native shook off a tough first half in which she hit just 1-of-5 shots and committed four turnovers with a dominant last two quarters. She scored 13 of her 16 points after halftime, hitting 3-of-5 field goals and 7-of-8 free throws and not turning the ball over in the second half, and also had five rebounds and three assists.
"I was very frustrated with myself, and coach was very frustrated with me," Reuter said. "I knew that I personally had to step up for this team to win."
The gritty performance, especially defensively, was exactly what Insell has come to expect from his team.
Middle Tennessee, which entered the game 33rd in the country allowing 55.9 points per game, held Kentucky to just 39.6 percent shooting in the game and 28.6 percent in the second half.
"We've played pretty good defense all year," Insell said. "We had some miscues there, but our rotations were pretty good.
"The real deal is here now. Conference play is here. We know we have to win the conference, and that's what we're going for."
Insell hopes his girls will take a similar style of defensive pressure into Conference USA play, which begins Jan. 4 at rival WKU. The Lady Raiders will then look for their 10th win in a row at the Murphy Center when they return home on Jan. 6 to face UAB.
