University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
Radford
Radford Holds off UNC Asheville
02.01.2012 | Women's Basketball
The Bulldogs were led by freshman guard Shonese Jones who tied a career-high with 30 points She becomes the first Asheville player to score 30 points in a season twice since Vicki Giffin did it twice in the 1997-98 season.
Erwin Spencer led RU (10-10, 4-5 BSC) with 21 points, while Buckhannon added 20 points. Victoria Hamilton chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds for the visitors.
Leah Wormack added 16 points for the Bulldogs. Kelli Riles led the Asheville effort on the boards with nine rebounds.
The Bulldogs (7-13, 3-6 BSC) led 48-45 with 9:30 left but Erwin Spencer would score the next nine points for the Highlanders to give RU the lead for good at 54-48.
Asheville closed to 54-51 on a trey from Jones but the Highlanders were 10-of-12 from the charity stripe in the final 1:10 to seal their third straight win.
The Bulldogs had a tough time shooting in the second half as they connected on just .280 (7-of-25) of their shots from the field.
Radford held a 41-34 rebounding advantage but had 16 offensive rebounds to six for the Bulldogs.
"I thought the difference in the game was on the offensive glass," stated Asheville coach Betsy Blose. "We just gave up too many offensive rebounds. Our team needs to learn to sustain our performance for 40 minutes."
The Bulldogs shot .560 from the field in the first half to take a 37-34 halftime lead. Jones and Wormack combined for 25 first-half points to lead Asheville. Wormack was a perfect 5-of-5 from the field in the opening half, while Jones knocked down two long treys along with four other field goals.
Erwin-Spencer tallied 12 points for Radford in the first half.
UNC Asheville plays next at Charleston Southern Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Radford travels to Big South leader High Point Saturday at 4 p.m.
