By LARRY MORITZ

Salina Journal

To finish the biggest upset of the first round of the NJCAA Women's Championship, the Thunderbirds of Casper, Wyoming had to first find a way to get some separation between themselves and Copiah-Lincoln (Miss.).

Casper accomplished just that near the midway point of the second half, then used a late 10-2 run to pull away for a 66-56 victory over the Wolves in a Wednesday afternoon contest at the Bicentennial Center.

The Thunderbirds (32-3) are the tournament's 12th seed and were the lowest seeded team to win in the opening round. The loss was the second of the year for Copiah-Lincoln (28-2), which was ranked No. 3 in the nation and seeded No. 5 in this tournament.

The game featured 11 lead changes and 10 ties, and neither team led by more than five points during the game's first 30 minutes. The last tie was at 40-all before Casper got baskets by four different players -- Sherece Huddlin, Shanice Billington, Juliana Paunovic and a 3-pointer from Lindsey Fearing -- to go up 49-43.

"That's been us all year," Casper coach Dwight Gunnare said. "We don't have one player we have to go to every time. We've had a good, balanced offense this year and we continue to do that."

It was still a four-point game (54-50) after Copiah-Lincoln's LaToria Holder made 1-of-2 free throws with 6:15 to play. The Thunderbirds again had four different players score -- including 3-pointers for Fearing and Paunovic -- in the 10-2 run that pushed the lead to 12 points.

"We struggled on offense the whole game and I'm sure during that time our defense wasn't particularly good either," said Copiah-Lincoln coach Gwyn Young. "We shot 30 percent from the field, but I thought we took it in there and got some good shots. We just missed."

"We finally did start to pull away," Gunnare said. "We started rebounding better on the defensive end after Copiah-Lincoln had been doing an excellent job getting second and third opportunities.

"I thought Samira VanGrinsven was much more of a presence in the second half as well."

VanGrinsven, a 6-foot-2 sophomore, had only six points in the game, but had 10 of her 16 rebounds in the second half.

Copiah-Lincoln was 21 of 69 from the field (30.4 percent) and made only 1-of-15 attempts from 3-point range.

Paunovic finished with 22 points to lead all scorers. Fearing added 16 and Billington had 14 for the Thunderbirds. Copiah-Lincoln got 19 points from Rachel Vigers and 13 from Brandi Simmons.

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