Appalachian State 63, Elon 52
BOONE, N.C. ? Junior Whitney Tossie (Oviedo, Fla.) put up a double-double with 19 points and a career-high 11 steals and sophomore Brittany Mixon (Altamonte Springs, Fla.) added a career-high
14 points as the Appalachian State University women’s basketball team defeated Elon, 63-52, in its Southern Conference opener, Saturday at the Holmes Center.
The Mountaineers move to 6-4 with the win and start off the SoCon season at 1-0, while the Phoenix drop to 5-5 overall and 0-1 in the league. ASU moved to 12-12 all-time in SoCon openers with the win, and extended its conference opener winning streak to three.
Appalachian forced 27 turnovers by Elon and scored 39 points off of free throws, finishing at 60 percent from the line. The Mountaineers scored 30 points in the paint and 27 off of turnovers.
Tossie finished with a game-high 19 points and 11 of ASU’s 15 steals.
Mixon, playing in the first home game of her Appalachian career, finished 5-of-7 from the field and 4-of-6 from the free throw line and added five rebounds.
Junior Maria Grimes (Birmingham, Ala.) rounded out ASU’s double-digit scorers with 11 points. Senior Jaime Bennett (Woodstock, Ga.) and sophomore Whitney Ketner (Spartanburg, S.C.) led the Apps on the boards with eight rebounds apiece.
Shashonna Moore and Tiffany Davis paced Elon with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Davis scored eight of her 10 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the charity stripe.
Down 15 points at halftime, Elon scored the first three points of the half to pull within 10 at 41-31 with 16:43 to go in the game. The Phoenix came as close as seven points from Appalachian, but ASU hit key free throws down the stretch to come away with a 63-52 victory.
The Mountaineers opened up the game with the first points of the contest off a jumper by Grimes in the opening minute. The Phoenix’s lone lead of the game came after a 4-0 run, at 8-7 with just under 16 minutes to go in the game. Appalachian pulled away late in the half, reaching its largest lead of the game of 18 points at 39-21 with 1:29 left in the opening period.
Elon’s Rachel Hester hit a three-pointer in the finals seconds to cut Appalachian’s lead to 41-26 at halftime.
The Mountaineers return to action as they head to Radford, Va., to face Radford University, Monday, December 18 at 7 p.m. Appalachian then returns home to host VCU in its final game before the holidays, Thursday, December 21 at 5 p.m.
Chattanooga 65, Hawaii 62
HONOLULU -- The Lady Mocs let a 13-point halftime lead slip away, but held on to claim a 65-62 win over host Hawaii to claim the Paradise Classic title Saturday afternoon at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Alex Anderson tallied her sixth double-double of the year with 18 points and 10 rebounds and was named the Paradise Classic Most Valuable Player. Shanara Hollinquest fouled out with 4:04 to play and scoring 14 points and grabbing nine boards. She was also named to the All-Tournament team.
Laura Hall, playing in foul trouble most of the second half, had 12 points including two crucial 3-pointers.
The Lady Mocs (6-4) came out strong in the first half and shot 47 percent from the floor, holding Hawaii to just 29 percent.
In the second half, the Rainbow Wahine (5-5), paced by Pam Tambini's 22 points, came out hard and held UTC scoreless until Hollinquest sank a free throw at the 15:42 mark.
The lead fell to four midway through the second half, and the Rainbow Wahine cut it to three with a chance to send the game into overtime on a trey from Tambini. Chattanooga, with 16 seconds on the clock turned over the inbounds pass and Tambini, with a look at the hoop, air-balled a 3-pointer and UTC held on to claim its sixth win of the season.
The Lady Mocs will return to the mainland to open Southern Conference play Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 3 p.m. against Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C.
UNCG 65, Coastal Carolina 54
GREENSBORO, NC ? KaLeah Latham scored a season-high 17 points and added seven rebounds and UNC Greensboro closed the game on a 10-1 run to defeat Coastal Carolina, 64-54, Saturday afternoon in women’s basketball action at Fleming Gymnasium.
Senior Jasmine Byrd added 11 points, while Irene Otamiri and Brittany Frazier each added six rebounds. With the win head coach Lynne Agee picked up her 498th win of her UNCG tenure.
The Spartans (5-3) were coming off of a 12-day layoff for final exams, but picked up their ninth consecutive victory at Fleming and snapped a two-game losing skid in the process.
Coastal senior guard Alisha Dills, who entered the game second in the nation in scoring at better than 24 points per game, had 27 points to lead Coastal Carolina. Junior guard Vanessa Laug was Coastal’s next leading scorer with just six points.
“Coming off of a long break it was nice to get back out on the court,” Agee said.” KaLeah played great for us today. She really stepped up for us in a big way. Kamena Brooks also had a big play that really changed the game for us. It was good to get the win.”
Brooks’ “big play” came with 1:25 left when she scored on a rebound off of a missed three-pointer by Kristen Boone. Boone fired up a 25-footer as the shot clock was about to expire. The horn went off while the ball was in flight, with the ball hitting the back of the rim. Coastal Carolina players froze when the horn went off. However Brooks, not hearing an officials’ whistle, grabbed the ball for the putback to give UNCG a six-point lead.
The Spartans shot 23-for-59 from the floor, good for 39 percent, and shot 76.2 percent from the charity stripe. Latham and Brooks were both perfect from the stripe with Latham going 7-of-7 and Brooks shooting 4-for-4.
Coastal (5-3), which has never won in six trips to Fleming Gym, stormed out to a 6-0 lead to open the game behind quick buckets by Laug and Dill, but the Spartans stormed back on a pair of buckets by senior guard Jasmine Byrd to cut the lead to two. The teams traded buckets throughout the first half with the Spartans taking a 30-28 lead into the break.
The Spartans extended their lead to four early in the second half with two consecutive jumpers by Boone but Coastal hit three free throws in their next two possessions to cut the lead to one at the 16:51 mark.
Both teams went without a field goal for the next three minutes but Dill hit a trey to give Coastal a 36-34 lead, its first lead since the 5:34 mark of the first half. However, the Chanticleers could not gain a lead of more than three.
The teams again went back and forth with neither team gaining more than a four-point advantage until late in the game when UNCG pulled away after Brooks’ heads-up play, which was part of a 10-1 run to close out the contest.
UNCG, which has now won 14 straight when holding opponents under 60 points, plays its second game of a three-game homestand when it faces backyard-rival High Point Monday night at 7 p.m.
College of Charleston 54, Georgia Southern 53
STATESBORO, Ga. ? A pair of three-pointers gave the College of Charleston a lift over the Lady Eagles late in the game, Saturday, as the Cougars defeated Georgia Southern, 54-53, their first-ever victory at Hanner Fieldhouse.
The Lady Eagles (5-6, 0-1) were led by freshman Carolyn Whitney (Duluth, Ga.) who scored 14 points and pulled down seven rebounds. Her three-pointer with 43 seconds remaining put GSU within a point, 54-53.
In the final seconds, Georgia Southern’s tight defense forced a pair of steals, which gave the Lady Eagles the opportunity to make the go-ahead bucket. But their last attempts wouldn’t fall and the Cougars came away with the win.
The Cougars (3-5, 1-0) were paced by forward Erika Smith who tallied 14 points and 12 rebounds. Hughes had 11 points on the day, and teammate Jill Furstenburg added 10 points and seven rebounds. Furstenburg’s crucial three-pointer gave the Cougars a four-point lead with 1:18 remaining.
Both teams struggled in the field goal shooting category. The College of Charleston shot 31.3 percent on 20-of-64 shooting, while the Lady Eagles made 17-of-61 (.279) field goals.
“They out-hustled us and they were the aggressors,” explained head coach Rusty Cram on the teams overall performance. “...We tried a little bit at the end to show some heart and salvage the game. But it was too little, too late.”
The Cougars held a two-point lead going into the halftime break, 30-28.
A bulk of GSU’s points in the first half came off of 16-of-20 (.800) free-throw shooting. Carolyn Whitney’s 5-of-6 and Shawnda Atwood’s 4-of-5 shooting from the charity stripe helped keep the Lady Eagles close.
Atwood (Pensacola, Fla.) added 10 points on the day and a team-high tying eight rebounds. Junior forward Chequilla Jessie (Sanford, Fla.) shared the team-lead in the rebounds category with eight rebounds, also adding six points.
The Georgia Southern bench outscored the Cougars 23-11 while the Cougars tallied 16 points off of 16 turnovers, compared to GSU’s 11 points off of 17 turnovers.
The lead changed 11 times throughout the game and the Cougars claimed the go-ahead point when sophomore Jade Hughes sank a free throw with 1:36 remaining.
The Lady Eagles will next play the third of a five-game homestand as they host Troy University ? a rematch from earlier in the season, Thursday, Dec. 21 at 7 p.m.