Karen Aston’s team was having flashbacks Wednesday night. The 49ers were one of the top teams in the A-10 this season, but struggled at times with closing teams out.
Wednesday, they reversed the trend.
Despite squandering a 15-point halftime lead, the 49ers are moving on to the next round of the Women’s NIT after a 62-56 win over the Liberty Flames at Halton Arena.
“There have been times this year where its been a struggle—where we’ve lost leads,” Aston said. “We haven’t handled it well at times this year so I saw some growth in our team. You’re encouraged to see them still working on things.”
Charlotte jumped out to an early lead and led by as many as 18, 31-13 in the first half behind a trapping defensive scheme and high defensive pressure on Liberty’s guards. That pressure resulted in 13 first half turnovers for the Flames and 18 points off turnovers for the 49ers, leading to a 37-22 lead at the break.
“One of the goals of this was for us to dictate the tempo,” guard Epiphany Woodson said. “We wanted to speed them up and they wanted to slow us down. The first half we did a good job of getting the ball and going, we had a lot of transition buckets.”
Liberty got a boost in the second half from both Avery Warley and Devon Brown, who were both held to just four and two points in the first half, respectively. Despite foul trouble, Warley—the Big South’s leader in field goal percentage—score 10 second half points and grabbed five more rebounds.
I think we went to sleep a couple times in the second half,” Aston said, “but all in all, she’s (Warley) a good player and I thought we did a good job defensively.”
Brown gave the Flames immediate offense, scoring 12 second half points as Liberty closed the gap to 58-54 with just under two minutes remaining in regulation on a Kylee Beecher layup. Charlotte knocked down some key foul shots down the stretch to hold on and will face the South Carolina Gamecocks on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Columbia.
Liberty’s turnovers turned into instant points for the 49ers, as Charlotte scored 24 points off turnovers and registered a 20-8 margin in fast break points. Liberty, one of the nation’s top rebounding teams, had 49 compared to just 39 for Charlotte.
Charlotte’s Woodson led all scorers with 22 points while Amanda Dowe scored 12 and grabbed nine rebounds for Charlotte.
“I was proud of how our team stuck it out and stayed together, we worked together and got the win,” Woodson said.
The win was the 24th for Charlotte on the year, tying the 1990-91 team for most all-time.
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