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Seniors
celebrate title despite loss to SMU As freshmen, senior guards Jill Sutton and Amy Porter wished huge crowds would one day fill the seats of Daniel-Meyer Coliseum to cheer on the Frogs. That dream came true Saturday as the TCU women’s basketball team closed the regular season with an 87-79 loss to Southern Methodist in front of 6,369 fans, the second-largest crowd ever to watch a TCU women’s basketball game. A sell-out crowd of 7,262 people was in attendance when the Frogs played Tennessee Nov. 27, but most of the fans were in Tennessee orange that night instead of TCU purple. Sutton said Saturday’s crowd was well worth the wait. “(The huge crowds) took us a little longer than expected (to get), but it’s better late than never,” she said. Saturday’s game was the final home game for Sutton, Porter, forwards Janice Thomas and Sally Spencer and center Karen Clayton, who are all graduating. One of the fans in attendance was Amy and Jill’s father Mike Sutton, who was wearing a TCU jersey with the number 11 on the front and number 12 on the back to support his daughters. “TCU has been a blessing to all of us,” Mike Sutton said. “Amy and Jill haven’t only had the opportunity to play with a great group of seniors, but they also played with great freshmen, sophomores and juniors. We’ll miss TCU.” Even though the fans were unable to see the Frogs complete a series sweep against SMU, the fans were treated to a postgame ceremony celebrating the graduating seniors and the team’s first Western Athletic Conference title. Sutton said she would rather remember the night for what happened after the game instead of what happened during it. “The celebration was more special than I ever could have imagined,” Sutton said. “I’m going to miss that feeling of getting up for the big games, but most of all, I’m going to miss my teammates.” The five seniors started the game, but only Porter was able to connect on the game’s early shots as she scored the Frogs’ first six points. Junior forward Kati Safaritova made the team’s next five points. With 10:15 remaining in the first half, only three TCU players had scored compared to six players for the Mustangs. Despite that, the Frogs were down by only four. After the Mustangs went on an 11-4 run, they opened their lead to 11 points. Although the Frogs shot 48.1 percent from the field compared to the Mustangs’ 46.7 percent, they went into halftime trailing, 44-34. In the second half, Sutton, who was held scoreless in the first 20 minutes, made her first two three pointers to narrow SMU’s lead to one point. With 15:50 remaining, TCU took its first lead of the game, 47-46. But the Frogs couldn’t stop the three-point shooting of SMU forward Kenni Patton, who made 9 of 13 shots from behind the arc. Patton’s 24 points were a career high. Even with the loss, Mittie said it didn’t ruin the postgame celebration. “Damper? Sure. Take anything away from this team? No,” Mittie said. “This was a celebration of the accomplishments of the championship. You can never take that away from the team.” After holding the WAC trophy and cutting down the nets, Sutton said her most memorable moment came when the Queen song, “We are the Champions,” was played. “In high school, Amy and I used to always play that song and think some day we would be champions,” Sutton said. “While we went to the state championship, we never won it. We’ve always had a second-place jinx on us.”
Kelly Morris |