The Lipscomb women’s basketball team beat the Tennessee Wesleyan University Bulldogs 86-44 Sunday afternoon at Allen Arena.
Five players scored in double figures for the Bisons, and four earned career-high scoring totals in Purple and Gold.
One player who reached both those achievements was true freshman wing Katherine Weakley, who finished with 11 points on 4-10 shooting. The Worthington, Ohio-born guard went 3-8 from behind the 3-point line and added 2 rebounds to her line.
“I started off kinda slow,” Weakley said, “but we picked up our energy after halftime. We started talking more, and I think that helped pick up the pace of the game. Some shots went in, and it’s because we were having great passes and moving the ball on offense.”
“We’ve been working on [that] a lot in practice this past week, trying to pass up the good shots to get great shots,” Weakley said. “That’s why we shot so well and everybody was able to contribute in different ways.”
Leading the Bisons in scoring was junior transfer Maddie Cook, who shot an efficient 6-7 from the floor for 12 points. Cook, who transferred from Belmont last year, also added 6 rebounds.
Sophomore guard Blythe Pearson shot 3-7 from the 3-point line en route to 11 points for Lipscomb, adding 4 rebounds and 4 assists in a team-leading 24 minutes for the Bisons.
The home side dominated the first quarter, using stifling defense to work up a 14-point advantage after one quarter. Cook scored 6 to pace the Bisons as they took a 21-7 advantage into the second period.
A 10-3 run midway through the second quarter, though, brought the Bulldogs back to within 8. It took four more consecutive points from Cook to restore the lead to 14 at the halftime buzzer, with the score standing at 34-20.
From there, the Bisons began scoring freely. Behind a pair of threes from Pearson, the Bisons extended their lead to 32 and capped off a 20-2 run to start the third quarter.
The fourth quarter belonged to Saleh, the 6’3″ sophomore center from Dearborn, Michigan. Saleh scored all ten of her points in the fourth quarter on 5-6 shooting and ended with a game-high 7 rebounds.
Behind Saleh’s late-game contribution, the Bisons finished strong and pushed the lead to 42, where it would stay at the final buzzer.
Lipscomb shot 47.8% from the field, despite a 8-31 mark at the 3-point line. They outscored TWU 36-20 in the paint and scored 22 points off of offensive rebounds alone.
Cook and Saleh provided three offensive rebounds each against a Bulldogs team with 11 freshmen and no player standing taller than 6’0″.
Lipscomb improves to 4-5 with the victory, claiming their second straight win at home. With the loss, TWU drops to 8-3 on the season and stays at 7-1 in the Mid-South Conference of the NAIA.
The Bisons are next in action 7 pm Wednesday at Allen Arena against the Tennessee State Tigers. That match will be broadcast live on The Bison, Lipscomb’s on-campus radio station.
Photo by CJ Arndt