Charlotte's Season Ends With WNIT Loss At Wake Forest

Sakellie Daniels

The Charlotte 49ers women's basketball team (22-8) saw their season end with a 100-75 WNIT first round loss at ACC foe Wake Forest. The 49ers' 22 wins is the third highest single-season total in school history.

Junior Sakellie Daniels paced the 49ers with 26 points. Freshman Sabrina Gregory tossed in 15 points. While, Whitney Hoey scored a career-high 10 points in the final game of her freshman season.

"We played hard tonight," Charlotte coach Katie Meier said. "However, we did not finish plays on defense. Not to take anything away from Wake Forest's performance tonight. But at least eight of their three-point field goals came as a result of our defensive breakdowns."

The 49ers sprinted out to an early 6-0 lead behind the scoring of Pam Brown and Daniels. Wake Forest would go on a 6-1 run to cut Charlotte's lead to one point. Then, the 49ers went on a 5-0 run to again lead by six points with 15 minutes left in the first half.

Then, Wake Forest went on a 7-0 run to take their first lead of the game 13-12 with 13:15 left in the first half.

The game remained tight for most of the remainder of the first half with five ties and numerous lead changes. Then, Wake Forest closed out the first half on a 9-3 run to take a 44-39 lead into the locker room.

The 49ers began the second half by scoring the first five points on a three-point field goal from Andrea Davidson and two free throws by Daniels tying the score, 44-44, with just a minute and half gone in the half.

Then, Wake Forest would out score the 49ers 15-4 over the next four minutes to take control of the game. The 49ers would cut the Wake Forest lead to 59-51 on a three-pointer by Gregory at the 13:58 mark but that was as close as Charlotte would get. Wake Forest would then explode on a 13-2 run to take a commanding 19 point lead with just under ten minutes left in the half.

The careers of seniors Monica League and Kysah Upchurch, who were first two players to play their entire four-year careers for Meier, ended with the WNIT loss. These two players played integral roles in leading the 49ers to a school-record three straight postseason tournaments.

"It was nice to have only 22 wins this season on a team with only two seniors," Meier said. "We should put a block of cement in our locker room and let those two seniors put their hand prints in the cement. Since they leave our program with their hand prints all over it."