Lady Mocs shut down Cougars

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- A couple of quick scoring bursts and some stout second-half defense helped the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga beat the College of Charleston 58-44 in Southern Conference women's basketball Saturday at TD Arena.

The Lady Mocs held the Cougars to 15 second-half points and ended the game on a 23-10 run to improve to 9-4 overall, 4-0 in league play. Whitney Hood led UTC with 16 points and Taylor Hall and Kylie Lambert had 10 and nine rebounds with nine points each.

"We had a lot of contributors," Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore said. "We didn't shoot great [36.2 percent], but we had several different people hit some big shots."

The game was tied at 29 at halftime and UTC led 35-34 with 16:16 remaining when the Cougars (2-12, 1-4) were held scoreless for more than six minutes.

UTC was able to push its lead only to 41-34 during that period -- Faith Dupree scored all six points -- but the final nine-plus minutes of the game were all Lady Mocs.

UTC led 46-39 following a Kylie Lambert 3-pointer with 8:25 remaining. That sparked a game-clinching 11-0 run that included two Kayla Christopher 3s -- her only points of the game. Lambert hit three 3s for her point total.

Charleston's Latisha Harris was the star of the opening half with 15 points and seven rebounds, but UTC shut her down in the second. Harris finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds but was essentially a nonfactor in the final 20 minutes.

"The Harris kid ate us alive in the first half," Moore said, "and we finally had to steal a page from [UTC men's coach John Shulman] and double the post some in the second half, and our kids did a nice job with that."

The Lady Mocs play at Georgia Southern on Monday at 5 p.m.

Upcoming Events