AMERICUS, Ga. – As they approach the home stretch of the 2011-12 season, the Georgia Southwestern Lady Hurricanes were looking to feed off the crowd on hand for GSW's homecoming as they took on Montevallo Saturday evening in the Storm Dome. Fans, students and patrons went home happy as Coach Britsky and company secured a 69-51 victory over the visiting Lady Falcons.
The GSW defense was good, not great, in some regards. They did hold the short-handed Lady Falcons to 18-56 (32.1%) shooting from the field for the game, but gave up 16 offensive rebounds as GSW lost the rebound game 36-35. The Blue & Gold were able to force 17 Montevallo turnovers and block four shots.
Terra Branch led the Lady Hurricanes in scoring for the eighth consecutive game. The senior from Athens would tally 20 points on seven of twelve shooting from the field, which included an ultra-efficient five of seven from beyond the arc. The guard would also grab four rebounds and dish out a career-high seven assists. Branch would receive scoring help from fellow senior guards Jessica Bivins (twelve points) and Tania Walters (eleven points) to round out the leading GSW scorers.
Montevallo, who would only play seven players, was led by point guard Trena Moore-Smith who finished the evening with fourteen points, seven rebounds and three assists. The only other Lady Falcon to score in double digits was forward Taylor Beverly who scored ten points to go along with her five rebounds.
The game was back and forth for the first three minutes before Montevallo would use a 10-4 run in 4:51 to take their biggest lead at 14-9. However, Georgia Southwestern would kick it into gear and outscore UM 26-10 over the half's final twelve minutes to secure the 35-24 halftime lead.
Branch would score twelve of her 20 points in the first half, and Adrian Randall would register four points, five rebounds and a block in the first half. Randall would eventually finish the game with four points, nine rebounds, three assists and three blocks.
The eleven-point halftime lead would hold up for much of the second half as Montevallo would only be able to cut it to as few as ten points before the game finished with a 18-point final margin with the 69-51 GSW victory.
The victory puts the GSW record now at 16-6 (8-5 PBC) and firmly plants the Lady Hurricanes in second place in the PBC West Division behind nationally-ranked Clayton State. The Lady 'Canes will look to win its fifth consecutive game (eight out of its last ten games) as they will host the aforementioned, nationally-ranked Lady Lakers of Clayton State. Tip-off will be at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening inside the Storm Dome.
