It was a tale of two halves for the Lipscomb women’s basketball team Saturday at Allen Arena.
After connecting on six 3-pointers in the first half, the Lady Bisons could not buy one in the second half, which resulted in a 91-71 loss to USC Upstate.
The Purple and Gold kept pace with the Spartans for the majority of the first half, but a late 15-2 run for Upstate carried them to the finish.
“I thought we played well the first 14 minutes,” head coach Greg Brown said. “But throughout the rest of the game, we did not match their physicalness or their intensity. With our size and depth, we can’t afford that.”
It was evident that their lack of size became a problem as Upstate more than doubled their offensive rebounds and hauled in 20 more altogether.
Redshirt sophomore guard, Danay Fothergill led all scorers with 21 points; however, it was not enough to slow down the Spartans.
“We kind of changed our defense, they kept going downhill and getting threes,” Fothergill said. “They just kept getting offensive rebounds, and I think that’s what hurt us the most.”
The Lady Bisons seemed to be very aggressive the whole game. They made several drives to the basket that resulted in 39 free-throw attempts, yet they could only account for 25.
“We were trying to get to the foul line on offense, but we just couldn’t knock down those easy shots like we have been,” Fothergill added.
Redshirt sophomore forward Ashley Southern was the only other Bison to score in double figures. She recorded 12 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for her Atlantic Sun record-tying 21st double-double of the season.
The Lady Bisons finished the season with a record of 6-23 and 3-15 in the conference. They will face number one-seeded Florida Gulf Coast in the first round of the conference tournament on Tuesday in the Sunshine State.
Photo credit: Erin Turner