• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Feb 9, 2010

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JACKSON, Miss. — Two days after bidding farewell to a seven-game winning streak, the Southern women’s basketball team again found itself on the wrong end of a conference rival’s upset bid.

This time, the Jaguars escaped.

Three free throws by junior guard Hannah Kador, fouled on a 3-point try with 1 minute, 9 seconds remaining, lifted Southern to a 53-52 victory over Jackson State at the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center.

Monday night’s win came on the heels of a 69-58 loss at Grambling, beginning the back half of the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s 18-game league schedule for SU.

“I knew there was no way we’d lose this game because of me,” said Kador, a McKinley graduate. “I just knew I had to concentrate and focus and knock down my shots.”

She usually does. Kador, the team’s leading scorer, entered play Monday ranked 10th in the SWAC with a 70.8 percentage at the free throw line.

“If there’s anybody I want on that line at crunch time,” Southern coach Sandy Pugh said, “it’s her. She has a swagger about her. She likes that limelight. Some kids shy away from those opportunities, but she has always — even as a freshman — wanted to be in a position to make clutch shots.”

The opportunity to put Southern on top came after Kador, firing from the left corner in front of Southern’s bench, fell to the floor while taking a hard foul from charging defender Shaneese McClin with SU trailing 52-50.

Making all three shots, Kador, who finished with 14 points and 15 rebounds, completed a night when she went 6-for-7 from the charity stripe.

Southern needed every one.

Coming off a victory Saturday over Alcorn, JSU (3-17, 2-8), the SWAC’s last-place team, went ahead by as much as six points in the first half before settling for a 26-22 edge at intermission.

Regrouped, second-place Southern (14-7, 8-3) appeared on the verge of pulling away in the first 8:05 of the second half. Ashley Augerson and Freda Allen keyed a 20-5 spurt that suddenly had the Jaguars up 42-31 with 11:55 to play.

“There was that stretch there,” Pugh said, “where we were back to playing Jaguar basketball.”