Photo Courtesy // Gregory French, Staff Photographer
It was an emotional Senior Day for Middle Tennessee (21-8, 15-3 C-USA), as the Lady Raiders cruised to a 77-55 victory over Florida International in front of 3,707 fans in the Murphy Center.
MTSU seniors Brea Edwards, TiAnna Porter and Caroline Warden were honored following the blowout win to close out their final regular-season game in Murfreesboro.
Edwards, in particular, reflected on her bond with MTSU assistant coach Kim Brewton after the game.
“She’s just done so much for me,” Edwards said with tears in her eyes during the postgame press conference. “She’s the reason I get to walk up that ramp today and participate in Senior Night. All the credit is definitely to Kim Brewton. She worked miracles to get me to this program, and it’s been the best two years of my life being here.”
Edwards had, arguably, her greatest performance as a Lady Raider, as she nearly became the second player in MTSU women’s basketball history to achieve a triple-double.
She finished with 20 points, 10 rebounds and a career high seven assists, including four 3-pointers to move her to second place on the all-time single-season 3-pointers list.
Edwards has 88 made shots from three-point range this season, trailing only Kortni Jones’ 115 3-pointers back in the 2012 season.
“My teammates do a very good job of finding me, especially in the corners,” Edwards said. “I give them the credit because they’re the ones who find me. I’m just trying to put the ball in the hole to get a win for our team. All the credit goes to my teammates.”
MTSU junior guard Ty Petty had a solid day running the Lady Raider offense, dropping 13 points and five assists.
Alex Johnson tallied 12 points and six rebounds, and Abbey Sissom added 10 points.
The Lady Raiders also duplicated their recent, strong outings in the paint, as they held a 43-26 rebounding advantage while outscoring FIU (4-25, 2-16 C-USA) by a 34 to 14 margin inside the paint.
“We knew we were the better team, but you have to play the game,” MTSU coach Rick Insell said. “You never know what’s going to happen in the game. What I’m thankful of is that everybody got to play and our fans were excited.”
Following the win, MTSU has locked up the two-seed for the Conference-USA Tournament, which begins in Birmingham, Alabama next week.
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