In a back-and-forth battle with an in-state rival and missing leading scorer Rickea Jackson down the stretch, the Tennessee women’s basketball team needed a little bit more from someone else.
How about a few someones?
Tess Darby and Jewel Spear hit key 3-pointers in the final period, Jasmine Powell finished with 16 points to match Jackson for the team high, and the Lady Volunteers used a late surge and success at the foul line to put away a 73-64 Southeastern Conference victory against Vanderbilt with a season-high 9,088 in attendance Sunday afternoon in Knoxville.
Jackson grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds — her four steals were a game high, and she also had a trio of assists — earning her third double-double of the season despite being sidelined for the fourth quarter because of asthma symptoms, according to a Tennessee release.
“We just needed to get stops,” Powell, who had a game-high eight assists plus five rebounds and two steals, said in postgame quotes provided by Tennessee. “We knew that if we could get a stop and get the rebound and push in transition, they weren’t stopping us. We knew we were better than their guards. We knew we could beat them in the trenches of the floor, but we knew we had to hone in on the next man up mentality to make sure we could close out this game even though we were down Rickea.”