The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team picked up its seventh win in its past eight games Saturday night at McKenzie Arena, knocking off the College of Charleston 64-53.
Jenaya Wade-Fray had 14 points and eight rebounds, Shanara Hollinquest finished with 13 points and eight rebounds and Michelle Davis added 10 points off the bench for UTC, which handed the Cougars their first Southern Conference loss of the season.
The Lady Mocs (9-6, 4-2 SoCon) are tied with Samford for third place in the league, while the College of Charleston (9-4, 4-1) is now tied with Davidson for the top spot with just one league loss.
"I think it's a really big win as far as getting back in the hunt," UTC coach Wes Moore said. "You'd hate to slip three games behind this early in the season."
Wade-Fray said Friday that Saturday's matchup was a "revenge game" for the Lady Mocs because of last season's 53-51 loss to the Cougars in the semifinals of the SoCon tournament.
"Today in film we watched them celebrate (the tournament win), so Coach was telling us to make sure we were the ones celebrating," Hollinquest said. "I think this was a great, great win."
Saturday's victory was worth far more than some measure of retribution, however. The Lady Mocs not only handed the Cougars their first SoCon loss, they also kept themselves in the top half of the league standings and improved to 3-0 at home in conference play.
"It was a must-win," said Hollinquest, who is now eighth on UTC's all-time rebounding list.
After losing five of their first seven games, the Lady Mocs have rebounded from their slow start to the season -- and a big reason for the recent success has been their rebounding.
Thanks to seven players with at least four rebounds, the Lady Mocs outrebounded the Cougars 44-28. In other recent wins, UTC outrebounded UNC-Greensboro 52-35 and Richmond 64-42.
"If you dominate the boards, you're (most likely) going to win the game," Davis said. "I think that's a very key thing for us and we've been doing well, doing a lot of box-out drills in practice, and I think it's finally paying off."
The Lady Mocs got off to a strong start Saturday and led the entire game. The score was 9-1 after more than four minutes and grew to as high as 16 points, 27-11 after a Wade-Fray 3-pointer late in the half.
But the Cougars were able to stay within reach because of 17 UTC turnovers and five timely 3s by Jade Hughes, who finished with a game-high 18 points. Charleston went on a 14-5 run over a 5:35 stretch in the second half to cut UTC's lead to 58-51 with 2:54 remaining.
Neither team scored against until Wade-Fray hit a pair of free throws with 39 seconds left. Kayla Christopher then put the game away with four more free throws.
The Lady Mocs are back in action Monday when they host Georgia Southern (7-6, 2-2), which was trounced 74-49 at Samford on Saturday.