It was close for a good while, the Southern Conference women’s basketball tournament championship between Mercer and Wofford.

Box score

          And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. In a big way.

          Mercer led by three after one and by nine at halftime, then dealt the knockout blow in a dominant third quarter en route to a 60-38 win over Wofford for the Southern Conference title and NCAA automatic bid.

          In its fifth conference tournament championship game it the last six years, the Bears won their third tournament title, this team joining 2018 and 2019.

          Mercer was picked by conference coaches to finish first and media third in the preseason, and the Bears finished second in the regular season, a game behind Samford.

          The championship rout and return to the NCAA Tournament is quite the turnaround from the hiccup of last year when the undermanned Bears went 8-23 overall and 4-10 in conference play, breaking a streak of five straight 20-win seasons.

          “Probably a day did not go by last year that I told my staff, ‘I’m not doing that again,’” head coach Susie Gardner said in the postgame radio interview. “I challenged them to get recruits and get the right people in our program.”

          The Bears outscored the Terriers 22-6 in the third quarter, the second straight quarter they held Wofford to all of  a half-dozen points.

          A 3-pointer from Georgia State transfer Jada Lewis 62 seconds into the third quarter set Mercer off on a 20-0 run. A layup at the 2:15 mark broke Wofford’s slump, but the Terriers were still in a 47-20 hole.

          “We told Jada, ‘When you get the ball, I want to to go as fast as you can,’” Gardner said. “She was fresh, and we felt like Wofford was a little bit tired. She did, and it got us going.”

          The Bears hit their version of a slump, going scoreless the final 1:56 of the third quarter, but they still led 49-24 entering the final 10 minutes.

          The only challenge left for Mercer was seeing if the Bears could double up an opponent in the championship game.

          “I’ve never hd a championship game where we we actually got to sub in and out, and hug and stuff,” she said. “It’s always been a close game.”

          It was the first finale with more than a single-digit spread since 2018 when Mercer beat ETSU 68-53. It’s the first championship margin of more than 20 points since 2012 when Appalachian State beat Chattanooga 77-52.

          Jaron Dougherty led Mercer with 19 points and 11 rebounds, plus six of the Bears’ 11 steals. Amoria Neal-Tysor added 16 points and Lewis 13.

          The Bears dominated despite a surprisingly subpar day from preseason player of the year Shannon Titus, who was 0 for 6 from the floor and finished with two points in 30 minutes, although she countered that with 10 rebounds and four blocks.

          Neal-Tysor was named tournament MVP, and was joined by Dougherty and Lewis on the all-tournament team.

          Mercer had a two-rebound edge, had six more assists than turnovers, while Wofford had 10 more turnovers than assists. The Bears held the Terriers to 24.5 percent shooting, and the runners-up were only 8 of 18 from the line.

          “This was the first time coming here for the championship game that I really was not thinking about the NCAA Tournament,” Gardner said. “It was really the moment at the time, just trying to survive the first round, second round, and then trying to survive this game.

          “I was so tunnel-visioned on this championship. ‘Oh yeah, we are going to the NCAA Tournament.”