Furman women’s basketball ended their regular season strong on Saturday, Feb. 24 with a home win against Wofford on Senior Night.
Furman’s three seniors, Cierra Carter, Stephania Oramas, and DeAnneisha Jackson (who did not play due to injury) were honored with their families at midcourt before tipoff, and given framed jerseys.
In their last game at Timmons Arena, Carter and Oramas shined in the big win against the Wofford Terriers.
Prior to the game, Carter stated that she “wanted to leave an impact on Furman Women’s Basketball.” After an 18 point and 10 rebound performance, Carter truly has left an impact, ranking 10th in Furman history in scoring and fifth 5th in rebounding.
Carter made her biggest impact on Saturday at the free throw line, knocking down 11-13 foul shots, including three3 huge free throws in the last 30 seconds to ice the game for the Paladins.
Oramas has made her impact on the Paladins this season in distributing the ball. After leading the team on Saturday with nine9 assists while also adding nine9 points, Oramas finishes third among assist leaders in the SoCon, averaging 5.1 assists per game.
Freshman center Celena Taborn dominated the low block, grabbing seven7 boards and scoring 15 points on 7-10 shooting. Taborn has been a force to be reckoned with in her freshman campaign, and finishes the regular season leading the SoCon in field goal percentage and averaging just under 12 points per game.
The Paladins also saw strong contributions from sophomore Le’Jzae Davidson, who scored 14 points including a couple huge three pointers, and junior Kaitlyn Duncan. Duncan played all 40 minutes of the game in the absence of Jackson, and made a big impact defensively, recording two steals, a block, and grabbing seven rebounds.
With just under five minutes left in the game, Furman led Wofford 58-48 in a game that felt like it was on the verge of a blowout. However, the Paladin offense began to stagnate and Wofford cut the lead to five with about two minutes left to play. With the ball and a chance to make it just a one possession game, the Terriers took the ball in transition only to have a crucial layup swatted away by Carter in such a manner that the whole arena could sense that these seniors owned Timmons and wanted to leave defiantly in victory.
This win marked the 26th time Wofford has faced the Paladins at home, and also marked the 26th straight time that Wofford has lost to the Paladins in Greenville.
The crucial win secured the fourth seed in the Southern Conference tournament which takes place this Thursday, March 1., as the Paladins face the third seeded Samford in Asheville, NC.