Box Score (NORTH CANTON, Ohio) – Kelsey Funderburgh showed shades of Stephen Curry as her 25 points led Walsh to a come-from-behind 68-62 victory over Ohio Dominican in the GLIAC tournament quarterfinals. The Cavaliers (20-8) used her outside shooting to overcome an eight-point deficit to outscore the Panthers (20-9) 28-18 in the final quarter.
Funderburgh tied a GLIAC tournament record with seven 3-pointers. She exploded in that last frame as she nailed four from behind the arc with three of them scored in a span of four possessions.
The last one came from NBA range as the senior guard took a pass from Brooklyn Wooten at the top of the key, quickly glanced up to see that the shot clock was winding down, and splashed the triple from deep on the left wing to give the Cavs a 64-60 lead with 35 seconds left.
After being down at the half, Walsh started the second half on a 10-0 run to regain the lead since the end of the first quarter. ODU eventually took back the advantage with late in the third and extended its lead back to eight within the first minute of the fourth quarter after a jumper and a pair of free throws by Madi Rittinger.
Brittni Clopton ended the run with a layup and after a Melissa Scherpenberg put-back, Funderburgh scored the first of her four 3-pointers in the frame to make the score 50-45 with 7:38 remaining. Just under five minutes later, her second gave the Cavs the lead at 58-56.
The Walsh defense came up big once again as it forced Ohio Dominican into 24 turnovers, 14 of which were steals. Naturally, that helped the offense as ODU miscues converted into 26 points. It helped on a night when the Cavs shot just 33.9 percent from the field compared to 46.4 percent for the Panthers.
A large part of the success Ohio Dominican had was because of Scherpenberg. The senior forward proved difficult to stop as she was 7-of-10 from the field with 16 rebounds.
Still, Funderburgh was able to answer the call. She was 8-of-14 overall and 7-of-13 from three. Wooten added 14 as the only other Cavalier in double figures. She did well in distributing the ball as she tallied eight assists.
Walsh now moves onto the semifinals for the second year in a row and sets up a rematch of last year's semifinal with Ashland. As the top seed remaining in the tournament, the Eagles will host the semifinals and finals this weekend. A start time will be announced Wednesday.