Coastal Carolina women snap 45-game losing streak to Liberty
Ced Gibson clutched the ball with both hands and made sure Liberty’s final turnover was firmly within her grasp. The final seconds ticked off the clock and her million-dollar smile got wider and wider.
Her show of jubilation was joined in by teammates at the Coastal Carolina bench, the culmination of a 58-51 victory Saturday at the Vines Center. On the surface, it was a Big South Conference regular-season victory for the Chanticleers. But each player and coach knew the significance of Saturday’s victory – Coastal finally beat Liberty.
The Chants’ victory over Liberty was the first in the series since Feb. 19, 1996, a 45-game stretch that lasted a day longer than 20 years. So the jubilant celebration that followed the final buzzer was well worth the lengthy wait.
“Amazing. We talked about this. I know everyone knows about it, but we just wanted to go out there and play a great game,” Gibson said after finishing with game highs of 20 points and six assists. “Knowing how we prepared for this game and everything we did, it just felt amazing to come out with a win. I had some great teammates and they came out there and everyone played together and we played well.”
Liberty’s winning streak against Coastal was the second longest active streak in Division I behind Stanford’s 60-game run against Washington State in the Pac-12 Conference. It almost came to an end in the teams’ first meeting this season, a narrow 65-63 setback on Jan. 19 at The HTC Center.
“We did not talk about the streak and we haven’t since I’ve been here,” Coastal Carolina women’s basketball coach Jaida Williams said. “It was more about this game, this Coastal team versus this Liberty team and nothing else.”
In that first meeting, the Chants (10-15, 5-11 Big South) jumped out to a 12-point first-half lead, only to see the Flames (15-10, 12-4) take the lead for good in the third quarter.
This time, the dominant first half didn’t go for naught. Coastal dominated every facet of the contest in the second quarter by forcing 11 Liberty turnovers and scoring 19 points off those miscues.
CCU’s full-court defense fueled the points in spurts. Coastal scored eight points in a 33-second span to take a 25-14 lead, and then capped a 17-4 run on Kennedy Archer’s jumper that saw the lead balloon to 34-16.
“The defensive part, I would believe, almost won us the game,” Archer said. “They were a lot bigger than us, but we just stayed with it and we kept strong and we kept the lead.”
Nicole Isaacs scored 15 points and Archer finished with 14 points off the bench.
Despite an 18-point halftime lead, the Flames began chipping away at the lead and limited Coastal’s open looks from 3-point range. CCU went 4 for 29 from the field in the second half and a meager 2 for 17 from beyond the arc.
But the Coastal defense forced 12 more turnovers in the second half and scored nine more points off those that helped seal the monumental victory.
Liberty also contributed to that in the second half by shooting 4 for 12 from the free-throw line.
Mickayla Sanders and Candice Leatherwood each scored 11 points for LU. The Flames’ three post players -- Ashley Rininger, Katelyn Adams and Catherine Kearney -- combined for 21 points and 30 rebounds on 9-for-18 shooting. Adams went 1 for 6 from the free-throw line.
“We played more of a helter-skelter speed game and we don’t want to do that. They were able to speed us up. We played their tempo and turned it over,” said Liberty coach Carey Green, a 1979 graduate from CCU. “Good effort in the second half; just couldn’t get over that hump.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2016 at 9:46 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women snap 45-game losing streak to Liberty."