Behind Johnson's 30 points, Norfolk State women cruise to third straight MEAC title game

NORFOLK, Va. (WTKR) — Last season Norfolk State women ended a drought of 21 years when it took home the MEAC Tournament championship.

On Saturday, the Spartans take aim at bringing another dry spell to a close; giving the conference another repeat champion.

Behind Diamond Johnson's 30 points, the top-seeded green and gold cruised past Coppin State 73-44 in the MEAC semifinals to punch their ticket a third straight league title game.

"It's just a tribute to how hard my players work on a daily basis. It's a tribute to my coaches," NSU head coach Larry Vickers said. "Everybody's locked in, dialed in. This is the goal, to win tomorrow, but we know we've got 40 more minutes to play."

A Spartan victory would give the MEAC its first back-to-back champion since Hampton won its fifth league title in a row in 2014.

"That's been the end goal since the very beginning and we all knew that," said Spartan forward Kierra Wheeler, who finished with 19 points against the Eagles. "This win today was a dominant win and tomorrow we want to be dominant again. We're excited for tomorrow and that's all we can be."

Already having two tight games against CSU earlier in the year, Norfolk State spent all of its off day on Thursday concentrated on getting right for the third matchup of the trilogy.

"I was really worried about this Coppin State group. I called them last night to meet me at 10:00, captains meeting," Vickers said.

"We set the tone last night as a team, we talked about the intensity that we needed to bring," Wheeler said.

Right out of the gates, Norfolk State showed that urgency in getting out to a 22-9 first quarter lead. Johnson, a transfer from NC State, outscored CSU on her own with 10 first quarter points and she was just getting going.

The guard hit three triples in the first half, going into the locker rooms with 19 first half points on 7-13 shooting. She would hit three more threes in the second half, notching a career high six made shots from beyond the arc.

"It helped me having experience of going to tournaments and going to the NCAA Tournament," Johnson said. "It helped me be better for me, it helped me for my team."

The semifinal performance was Johnson's sixth game this season with at least 25 points. She was just two shy of her career-high mark, set against Morgan State with 32 points in February.

Overall, NSU held Coppin State to just 24.5 percent shooting, forced 18 turnovers, and outscored the fourth seed in the paint 32-16.

"Just because we're the number one seed doesn't mean we didn't work for it," Wheeler said. "I wanted to tell them that everyone put in the hours, we put in the time, so let's show them what we're working with."

Norfolk State enters Saturday's championship tilt on a 14-game win streak.

"We know no team's gone back-to-back in ten years. It's been a long time since a team went back-to-back in our league," Vickers said. "That's how hard it is to win these things even with tremendous players."

"So we're going to be focused, locked in and ready for tomorrow."