CLINTON, Miss. --- The Mississippi College women's basketball team will open their three-game road swing to close the season on Thursday night when they travel to face Lee University at 5:00 p.m. (Central) in the Paul Dana Walker Arena.
This will be just the 2nd all-time meeting between the two schools with the other coming back on January 12th in Clinton, a 66-44 win for Lee. The Lady Choctaws would take an early 3-2 lead, but the Lady Flames used a 15-0 run to take a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the way.
AnnMarie Harris scored a team-high and tied a season-high with 14 points, going 4-of-8 from the field and 6-of-7 from the free throw line. Four Lady Flames scored in double-figures, and Christina Johnson led the team with 16 rebounds.
Head coach
Paul Allen Duke coached his 500th career game on Saturday, January 24th at West Alabama. He began his 20-year career at MC in the 1995-96 season and is the all-time leader in school history in wins (339) and winning percentage (.670). Duke earned his 300th career victory over January 14th, 2012 against East Texas Baptist.
The Lady Choctaws celebrated "Senior Day" on Saturday afternoon, honoring
Lauren Bethly, Harris,
Shuntequa Lofton and
Jaianah Matthew, who played their final games in A.E. Wood Coliseum. Bethly scored a career-high 12 points with a team-high five steals, but Alabama Huntsville picked up a 63-46 win.
Kristen Sampson (12.3 ppg) is the team's leading scorer and had scored in double-figures in six straight games before being held to six points on Saturday. She is shooting 46% from the floor and is 26-of-64 (41%) from the three-point line.
Ashley Minor (11.4 ppg) also averages in double-figures and leads the team with 57 steals.
Harris (5.9 rpg) is the team's leading rebounder and is scoring 6.8 points per game. She also ranks second on the team with 33 steals and is third with 10 blocked shots.
Allie Hill leads the team with 50 assists, while scoring 6.7 points per game and shooting 71% from the free throw line.
Zaneta Kubicka leads the team with 25 blocked shots, the most for a Lady Choctaw since the 2004-05 season when Shayla McLin blocked 25.
The Lady Flames, led by 11th-year head coach Marty Rowe, opened the year with five straight victories, but have alternanted wins and losses over the last six games. They played 9-of-11 games away from home during a stretch of the season, but will close the year with four straigh in Paul Dana Walker Arena, where they are 9-2 on the season.
The young Lady Flames are led in scoring by three freshmen: Emileigh Swafford (16.1 ppg), Erin Walsh (13.6 ppg) and Shelby Brown (10.0 ppg). Senior Alex Swope runs the offense with 4.1 points per game and a team-high 105 assists.
