The University of Charleston women's basketball team is living life these days by that old March cliche: survive and advance.
It was rarely pretty, but the Golden Eagles pulled off the 2017 Mountain East Conference tournament's first big upset by knocking off top-seeded Glenville State 65-67 Thursday at the Charleston Civic Center.
UC trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half, but an aggressive defense aided by Glenville's inability to hit shots helped lift the Golden Eagles past the Pioneers and into Saturday's semifinal round.
"They started to crumble for a second, but decided they wanted to be there and figured it out," UC coach Adam Collins said. "They played not necessarily a great game in terms of 23 turnovers, 29 percent [shooting] from the field, those type of things, but a really gritty game. They showed a lot of toughness and I'm extremely proud of them."
Glenville opened the game on a 10-0 run and by the end of the first quarter led 28-13. The Pioneers would score a total of just 29 points in the final three quarters.
"That's hard to stand there and watch," Glenville State coach Kim Stephens said. "That's a kudos to their defense, but it's us not being disciplined enough to do what we practice."
After the first quarter, the shots stopped falling for the Pioneers. For the game, Glenville shot 18 of 81 from the field (22 percent), including a 5-of-38 performance from 3-point distance. In the second half alone, the Pioneers went 0 of 18 from behind the 3-point line.
"Before the game I preached that we could get great shots if we want them," Stephens said. "Pass it around until we get a great shot, and we didn't do that. We didn't rebound the ball very well after our 3-point shots, which hurt us also.
"We settled for average shots and the game plan was to settle for great shots. We failed to do that."
UC did a good job of executing its game plan to get to the foul line, and it paid off. The Golden Eagles went 31 of 39 at the line, scoring more than half of their points for the game there. Senior Jordyn Peck did not have a great night from the floor but more than made up for it with a 14-of-14 performance at the line on her way to a game-high 21 points. Freshman Octavia Loll scored nine of her 16 points from the line as well. Mya Walker led the team with 10 rebounds to go along with nine points.
"Octavia is going to be a first-team all-conference player for a long time in this conference," Collins said. "It's always been a matter of her figuring that out and believing me when I tell her that. The more that she plays in this tournament, if she doesn't believe me now, hopefully she will. It was phenomenal of her not just handling the ball but making free throws down the stretch. Both of them [Loll and Peck] were the primary ball handlers all evening and took a lot of bumps, reaches, a lot of getting knocked down to the floor and things like that. They really just kept fighting."
The Golden Eagles also found ways to hold Glenville's Paris McLeod, the MEC's Player of the Year this season, in check for long stretches. McLeod led the Pioneers with 17 points but did so on 5-of-24 shooting. Collins gives the credit for that to Aloneet Durden.
"Aloneet Durden is the best one-on-one defender in the conference," he said. "I think we're the best defensive team in the conference. Because of some early goings our numbers aren't quite there, but I think right now we're playing the best defense in the conference. Aloneet gives you an opportunity, I won't say to take anyone out, but even someone as good as Paris, who is an unbelievable player, Aloneet makes it difficult on them."
The No. 8 seed Golden Eagles move on to Saturday's semifinal round, scheduled to begin at noon, where they will take on Fairmont State for a spot in Sunday's championship game.
Contact Tom Bragg at 304-348-4871 or tom.bragg@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomBraggSports.