Defensive tenacity paid off in the second half as the MSU women’s basketball team shut the door on the Athletes in Action, battling its way to a 83-72 decision Sunday.
Athletes in Action, or AIA, is a traveling team composed of professional and post-collegiate players on a three-week, 16-game tour playing exhibition games around the country.
Perhaps the most impressive statistic for the Spartans was the even scoring distribution, as four MSU players posted double-digit scores, while no player had fewer than five points.
The Spartans were led by senior forward Syreeta Bromfield who knocked in 21 points and nabbed seven boards in the process. Senior center Jennifer Callier and junior guard Candice Jackson had 12 and 11 points, respectively, and sophomore guard Kristin Haynie had a team-high 11 assists.
MSU head coach Joanne P. McCallie said she was impressed with her team’s effort against AIA, adding her team gained invaluable experience from the matchup.
“We’re going to learn a lot from this film, about how tough we were at certain points,” McCallie said. “We put up a great fight out there and I’m very proud of our team and our effort against such a strong opponent.”
Both teams came out hard in the first half, with the lead flip-flopping seven times. MSU’s largest lead, six, came midway through the half, but AIA quickly quenched it with a 10-0 run.
A jump shot from Haynie danced around the rim and finally fell in to give the Spartans a 39-34 lead with just more than a minute left in the first half, but AIA’s Katie Voigt countered with a three to cut the lead to two.
Voigt then nailed a jumper two seconds shy of the horn to knot the game at 39 going into the break.
“We had some mistakes in the first half, but we went into the locker room at half time and got our heads together and came back out there ready to show we could stop them,” Bromfield said.
In the second half, the Spartans left it all on the court, allowing just two AIA scores from behind the arc, despite 15 attempts. MSU also took advantage of rebounds by pouring in 20 second-chance points.
With AIA up 63-62 with just more than eight minutes remaining in the game, MSU ignited a 20-10 scoring fury that halted its opponents in their tracks.
Jackson drained a three from the baseline to give the Spartans a two-point advantage, followed by freshman guard Lindsay Bowen popping a trey and a jumper of her own to put the game away.
“I think we fared all right,” Callier said. “We gave up more points, but we talked more, that was a major adjustment we needed to make. They are a very experienced, a very strong team.
“This was definitely a good test for us.”
The Spartans’ final exhibition will be played 2 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Breslin Center against the Basketball Travelers.
