CLINTON, Miss. --- The Mississippi College women's basketball dropped a 63-49, Gulf South Conference contest against Valdosta State on Thursday evening. The Lady Choctaws (5-14, 3-13 GSC) shot a season-high 91.7 percent from the charity stripe despite the setback.
MC was led offensively by
Kristen Sampson's 19 points while
Toni Woods added 10 points for the squad.
Chloe Roberts guided the efforts on the glass with a team-high seven rebounds.
"We're getting all we can from this team, but tonight we had to play with
Carla Clemmons and that really hurt us tonight," said head coach
Paul Allen Duke. "She's usually good for 12 points and seven rebounds and we missed that against Valdosta State. We shot really well from the free throw line tonight to keep us in the game. We just didn't look as prepared tonight and that's my fault as the head coach."
VSU (11-10, 7-9 GSC) held a 28-16 advantage at the break, but witnessed the Lady Choctaws outscore them 17-13 in the third quarter, despite the Blazers holding its largest lead of the game, 35-18, with 7:31 left in the period. MC rattled off a 15-6 run to close the third quarter and nip the deficit to 41-33. Sampson and Woods provided the majority of the scoring effort during the run as Woods scored six points with five coming from Sampson, including one of her three treys during the contest.
After Valdosta State's Lydia Harvey knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to extend the lead back to 14 points, The Lady Choctaws once again responded with an 8-2 scoring spurt to clip the back to eight points, 49-41.
However, the Red and Black answered with an 11-3 run push the lead 60-44 with 1:32 remaining as Harvey connected on her fifth 3-pointer of the game to cap the run and finished with a team-best 15 points for VSU.
"She averages about 44 percent for them from behind the arc," Duke said of Harvey. "And a couple times we just got lost trying to guard her in the second half and she made it count."
Mississippi College finished the night shooting 39 percent from the field, including a clip of 42.9 from behind the arc. Valdosta State ended the night shooting 44.9 percent from the floor and connected on 40.9 percent of its shots from the 3-point line. The Blazers shot just 50 percent from the free throw line.
Madi Mitchell added 12 points for Valdosta State and Aaliyah Cheatham provided 11 points.
The Lady Choctaws return to action on Saturday, Feb. 6 as it hosts the University of West Florida. Tip is scheduled for 2 p.m.
