49ers coast to fourth straight win

Wednesday night didn't exactly start out the way Charlotte 49er head coach Karen Aston drew it up. Charlotte (18-5; 6-2) faced a trending George Washington team (7-15; 2-6) that--before winning two straight--had lost seven consecutive games.

But in the first half, Aston's 49ers looked like the team that averaged just over 56 points per game and had only one win in their last nine road games.

"I think you get in lulls sometimes in conference play and you have to try and have some maturity and work through them," Aston said of the team's slow start. "I kind of sniffed this out a little bit the last couple days of practice, I thought they had been pretty lethargic."

Charlotte shot just 29 percent from the field (0-7 3 FG) and turned the ball over nine times en route to a 27-21 lead for the Colonials at the break. George Washington wasn't much better (39 percent FG) but turned Charlott's turnovers into some easy transition buckets.

The deficit would have been larger for the 49ers if their rebounding edge (21-18) hadn't given them numerous second chance points.

Whatever Aston said to her players in the locker room seemed to hit home. Charlotte opened the second half on a 22-5 run over the first eight minutes and took a commanding 43-32 lead into the final 12 minutes.

"The reality of, 'If you don't win this game, you don't have a shot (at the NCAAs)'," Aston said of her teams urgency in the second half. "We're still trying to get there--that's our goal. It wasn't a lot of X's and O's, we just weren't playing very hard."

Helping Charlotte to their large second half run was a limited number of turnovers--just two over the first 10 minutes--and a growing rebounding margin. Charlotte outscored GWU 50-28 in the second half to win their fourth consecutive game and seventh in the last eight, 71-55.

Sophomore forward Jennifer Hailey picked up her second consecutive double-double with 12 points and 14 boards while reigning A-10 Rookie of the Week Gabby Tyler added nine points and eight rebounds for the 49ers (19-5; 7-2).

"I thought Jenn Hailey was terrific," Aston said. "You can look at her numbers, and they're not spectacular, but just her presence. She's just become a little bit of a leader."

Charlotte won the rebounding battle 47-34 and committed only five second half turnovers.

The 49ers will try to make it 20 wins on the season Saturday night in Halton Arena for a match-up with the Dayton Flyers.