ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Despite scoring the game's first six points, the Drexel Dragons found themselves in quick trouble in their NCAA Tournament first-round game with the fifth-seeded Kansas State Wildcats on Saturday at The Pit. After five minutes of play, the 12th-seeded Dragons' leading scorer and Colonial Athletic Association preseason player of the year, Gabriela Marginean, headed to the bench with two fouls.
It didn't take long for the Wildcats to take advantage.
Deb Patterson's Wildcats, now 25-7, went on a run against Drexel's suddenly depleted lineup and never looked back as they defeated the Dragons 68-44 to advance to the second round of the Raleigh Regional. K-State will face the fourth-seeded Vanderbilt Commodores on Monday at The Pit, the homecourt of the New Mexico Lobos.
"It wasn't necessarily a pretty game for us at points in time, but we found a way to fight through possessions and I thought we managed the game real well in the second half overall," Patterson said.
The Dragons jumped out to a 6-0 lead over the Wildcats as K-State missed its first five field goal attempts. The Wildcats tried to get the ball inside to Ashley Sweat and Marlies Gipson, but the pair failed to connect on several forced lay-ups.
Then Marginean committed her second foul and everything about the game changed.
"I thought it was a huge factor in this game," Patterson said. "Anytime you lose somebody early in the game of this magnitude, it puts a lot of pressure on everyone else and changes the flow a little bit."
That change of flow benefited the Wildcats immediately as their offense suddenly began to click.
Patterson's team immediately started to pull away from the Dragons, as they began to break the Drexel zone defense with Gipson connecting from the paint on back-to-back attempts.
The Wildcats built a quick 11-6 lead following the run and continued to build on the momentum and went into halftime leading the Dragons, 26-19.
During the first half, senior point guard Shalee Lehning was able to penetrate the Drexel zone defense and tied the school record for assists in a game by half time with eight.
"The lanes were just open and my teammates did a great job of knocking down the shots," Lehning said. "You just have to see what the defense is giving you and tonight it was more for me to pass the ball. So, the credit goes to my teammates, I just give them the ball and they're the ones who have to do the hard work and knock it down."
Lehning would finish by tying her career high 13 assists. The 13 assists is the most by any player in an NCCA tournament game since Tameka Johnson of Louisiana State had 15 on March 26, 2005.
The Wildcat offense would continue to click in the second half as junior guard Kari Kincaid would jumpstart the Wildcats with deep 3-pointer from the wing. The Wildcats' perimeter game would open following Kincaid's shot, as the Cats would go 6 of 11 from beyond the arc in the second half after shooting 3-10 in the first half.
"I was really pleased with our perimeter (shooting) in the second half," Patterson said. "It (was) really neat to see it open up for us in the second half and I really appreciate the confidence and aggressiveness that Kelsey Nelson and Danielle (Zanotti) and Kincaid brought to the floor."
The perimeter game would prove to give the Wildcats the cushion they needed to propel them passed the Dragons in the second half.
"I said it going into the game, they have players in each position that are really threats out there," Drexel coach Denise Dillon said. "It really opened up, the drives, the kick-outs, and knocking down those threes forced us to go man-to-man. Again, they took advantage of whatever defense we showed them."
Gipson led the Wildcats with 18 points, while Sweat and Kincaid both added 11. Marginean still managed to lead the Dragons, which ended their season at 24-9, with 15 points in 24 minutes of action. Jasmina Rosseel added 13 for Drexel.
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