The shots were falling early Saturday for the No. 25 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team against Mercer.
That gave the Mocs the boost they needed for a 71-59 victory that extended their winning streak to 15 games and kept them unbeaten in Southern Conference play.
UTC (19-3, 7-0) shot 63 percent from the floor in the first half and held Mercer’s Precious Bridges — the SoCon’s leading scorer — to two points before halftime. Then the Mocs opened the second half with a 16-2 run to put the game out of reach and get the program’s 41st consecutive league victory in front of 2,639 fans, the 19th largest home crowd in program history.
“I thought our execution was good, and I thought we did a good job defensively with the Bridges kid in the first half,” UTC coach Jim Foster said following the game. “Bridges and (Kahlia) Lawrence are both very good off the bounce. They make less 3s than any team in this league. … They’re going to try to get to the basket and take mid-range jumpers.”
UTC sophomore guard Chelsey Shumpert led the way with 19 points on 4-of-8 success from 3-point range, while Jasmine Joyner had 16 points and three blocked shots and freshman Keiana Gilbert had her second career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds as well as five assists.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to get as frustrated as I did the last game,” Joyner said of bouncing back after being limited to two points in the Mocs’ 49-32 win over Samford on Monday. “The coaches worked with me, because I knew I was going to have to play against a taller player (6-foot-5 Teanna Robinson) with a longer wingspan that me. I just tried to reverse it and run the floor, and lots of possibilities happened.”
Mercer stayed within five points of UTC for the first 16 minutes, but the Mocs pushed the lead to 40-29 by the break. Early foul trouble limited Robinson and other Mercer post players and was the key to the game, according to Mercer coach Susie Gardner.
“Some key players got in foul trouble for us,” she said. “When Teanna Robinson and Alex Williams got into foul trouble, that disrupted our rotation. I think that’s what hurt us. They got some easy shots.
“Obviously, Chattanooga is a very good team, but that was a part of it.”
UTC raced to a 56-31 lead in the first six minutes of the second half, using defensive pressure to get 16 second-chance points and 14 points off turnovers.
“I think we were more aggressive,” Shumpert said. “We were aggressive in the first half, but I think we came out with a lot of energy in the second half. We moved the ball, played great defense.
“We just wanted interrupt them a little bit on defense. We wanted to stay in their passing lanes and make things hard.”
Perhaps the strangest play of the game came with 16:25 remaining when Gilbert stole the ball from Alicia Williams and raced the length of the court with Williams chasing. As Gilbert got to the basket, she hesitated and then ducked as Williams went up and over her before Gilbelt made an easy layup.
“I saw her out of my peripheral vision, and I knew she would try to block the shot with how fast we were going,” Gilbert said. “I just pump-faked her, and once I saw her going over me, I just went up with it.”
Gilbert’s performance didn’t come as much of a surprise to her coach.
“This is the kind of game that she would thrive in,” Foster said. “The way they play gives her a lot of opportunities to sort of pick and choose. She’s a good passer, she’s a good finisher, so she had a lot of opportunities to make some solid decisions.”
Mercer (11-11, 3-3) was led by Alicia Williams with 18 points and eight rebounds. Bridges scored 14, but she was held below her 20.8 average and did most of her scoring late with the game out of reach.
The Mocs will travel to Johnson City, Tenn., today and likely get to bed early to be ready for an 11 a.m. game against East Tennessee State in a showdown between the final two unbeaten teams in the SoCon. UTC hasn’t played quite that early this season, but it is 3-o in games with tipoffs at noon local time.
“Actually I think that’s an advantage for us,” Joyner said of the early tipoff at ETSU. “We’ve played games at noon and 1. I feel like we play better in the morning for some reason, even though this team is really lazy and doesn’t like to get up early in the morning.
“But we actually play better (early), so I think it’s an advantage for us.”
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.