KNOXVILLE - The University of Tennessee women's basketball team had every intention of running the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga off the court Monday night.
The Mocs had other intentions.
The fourth-ranked Lady Vols used a 17-0 run to build a 26-7 lead after a quarter. UTC rallied back, cutting the margin to two on three occasions in the fourth quarter, including the final margin - 59-57 - in front of 9,449 fans at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee's Diamond DeShields scored a team-high 17 points off the bench, adding four steals. Mercedes Russell added 13 points, while Bashaara Graves had a double-double with 10 points, 11 rebounds and three steals.
Tennessee guard Diamond DeShields (11) shoots past Chattanooga guard/forward Keiana Gilbert (20) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Monday, Nov. 23, 2015, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)UTC's Queen Alford had 19 points, her career high as a Moc, while Ansley Chilton added a career-high 13 points on 3-of-4 3-point shooting off the bench. The Mocs played their second consecutive game without guard Chelsey Shumpert, who was injured against Indiana last week.
Alford bounced back from a couple of average performances last week.
"I just kept listening to my coach and my team," she said. "That's what made me play the way that I play. I knew they needed me and I had to step up my game."
The Mocs will be back in McKenzie Arena on Wednesday, when they host Arkansas State (3-0) at 6:30.
Tennessee head coach Holly Warlick improved to 2-2 against UTC in her career, having won both meetings at TBA while dropping both games at McKenzie.
"It's a win," she said. "We'll take it, but it wasn't very pretty and I'm not very happy. We'll take the win, though, and move forward."
It was a sloppy game, at least in parts. The Mocs committed 21 turnovers, two more than Tennessee. The visitors shot 60 percent (12-of-20) from the floor in the second half while limiting the Lady Vols to 30 percent, including misses on all 10 of their 3-point attempts.
After building the hefty first-quarter advantage, Tennessee built that lead to 36-13 after a basket inside by Mercedes Russell with 4:47 to play in the second quarter, but the Mocs started to cut into the lead little by little. They trailed 38-19 at halftime and by as many as 20 in the third quarter, but the Mocs finished the quarter on a 13-0 run as UTC's zone defense started to cause problems.
"The first quarter was about getting our heads where they needed to be," UTC coach Jim Foster said. "Once we got comfortable there, it becomes more strategic. You play a certain way and chip away at this thing. There's no such thing as a 20-point basket. You've got to get two, then get a stop a lot of times to get back in this game, and I thought we did a good job of that."
Tennessee missed its final 12 shots of the third period. That run ended on a hook by Russell with 7:59 to play to make it 49-42, but the Mocs' Keiana Gilbert hit a layup and Chilton sank a 3 to trim lead to two.
Chilton hit another 3 to cut the gap to 53-51 with 2:49 to play, but Tennessee held on by scoring on four of its final five possessions.
Still, the mood was more positive coming from the UTC players afterward than from the Lady Vols, who seemed sullen after the win.
"We knew what we were capable of," Chilton said. "We haven't been playing like we can lately, and I knew today it would happen."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.