Lady Wildcats claw through competition, clinch SIAC women’s hoops championship with 79-69 win over Clark Atlanta

The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference corporate office is located in Tucker, Ga., but the headquarters for women’s basketball rests, rules and abides at Fort Valley State University.
This past season, the Lady Wildcats clawed their way through uncharted territory, going 26-4 and 22-0 in league play, both of which are school records and SIAC records for victories. The end result: capturing their ninth conference tournament crown with a 79-69 win over Clark Atlanta University at the SIAC Women’s Basketball Tournament in Birmingham, Ala.

“Clark (Atlanta) is a tough team. They’re well-coached, they have a bunch of seniors and they have the conference Player of the Year in Shantrell Moss,” said Fort Valley women’s head coach Lonnie Bartley. “I knew it was going to be a tough ballgame. We feel like we’re a second half team. Our pressure defense and depth took over. We have a deeper bench than anybody in the conference. We didn’t start this journey in November. This journey was started in August when they came to school. We put a lot of time in and we expect to get big rewards. It paid off for us.”

As a result of its triumph, Fort Valley State secured an automatic bid as a No. 2 seed to the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball South Regional Tournament and will play against No. 7 seed Quachita Baptist University. The game is slated for Friday, March 13 at 1 p.m. (Central Standard Time) on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.

Throughout the first half, the game remained close with Clark Atlanta up 32-30 at the break. However, the Lady Wildcats stormed out of the locker room after intermission, putting together a solid run to open the second half to pull away with the win.
Junior swing player Shekiya Tarpkins scored a team-high 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting to pace Fort Valley State for the three-game sweep over the rival Lady Panthers. She also added eight rebounds and four assists to complete her statistical achievements.
“We worked hard in the preseason to get where we’re at and we want to keep it going. In the second half we played our game and that’s what led us to the win. We let our defense create our offense and we came out to the win. We just have to keep working hard and stay focused,” said Tarpkins.

Alongside Tarpkins, two other Lady Wildcats cracked double figures, led by junior point guard Takesha Riggs, who scored 21 points with eight rebounds and six assists. Freshman center Jasmine Birdsong recorded a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds, eight of which came off the offensive glass.