The Charlotte 49ers women’s basketball team (12-8; 5-1 A-10) continued their roll through conference play Tuesday night with a 60-46 win over visiting Richmond (14-6; 3-2 A-10) in a rematch of last year’s Atlantic 10 Championship final.
Richmond was 3-1 in conference play coming into the game but were coming off a horrendous 83-31 road loss at the hands of conference rival Dayton in which the Spiders were held to just 16 points in the first half.
Charlotte had a stretch over the first five minutes of play where they couldn’t score and allowed the Spiders to go on a 9-0 scoring run and take the lead 11-3 with 13:38 remaining. Charlotte countered with a 6-0 run to close the gap and get back into the game.
After Charlotte’s counter-run, the game was back-and-forth for the rest of the first half and when Ashley Spriggs made a bank shot with just under 10 seconds left in the half, the game was tied at 26.
“Once again, I thought we really got off to a slow start, but I attribute a lot of that to Richmond,” Charlotte head coach Karen Aston said after the game. “We thought they would come in here ready to go, and they did. It took us some time to adjust with the way they were playing. I thought Kelsy (Mcadoo), Jennifer (Hailey), Jessica (Johnson) and Jaquaria (Forney) all gave us a lift in the first half when Shannon and Ashley got in foul trouble.”
Charlotte came out firing in the second half and outscored Richmond 14-4 to open up their lead to 40-30 with 13:35 remaining. Richmond came right back with a 9-0 run though, and made the score 40-39 with 8:47 remaining in the game.
After Brittani Shells tied the game at 46 on a 3-pointer, Shannon McCallum and the Niners took over. McCallum nailed a long-range three to put Charlotte up 49-46 with 4:33 left and after Shells’ tying 3-pointer with 5:28 left, Richmond didn’t score again. Charlotte closed the game on a sizzling 14-0 run to move to 8-1 on the season at Halton Arena and take sole possession of third place in the Atlantic 10 behind only Duquesne and Xavier.
“The older players really were the anchor in the second half,” Aston said of the second half surge. “I thought Shannon hit some really big shots and made a couple of really critical defensive plays but you can just tell that the upperclassmen had been in this environment before. They really are stepping up to the plate right now for our team.”
McCallum had a game-high 19 points for Charlotte to go along with 12 rebounds while Ashley Spriggs also notched a double-double, recording 15 points and 10 rebounds. Aysha Jones was the third double-digit scorer for Charlotte with 10 points and Erin Floyd added nine points and six rebounds
The Niners struggled rebounding the ball in the early-going and Head Coach Karen Aston was visibly upset, calling a timeout at one point to regroup her team. Apparently the message got through. The 49ers grabbed 16 offensive rebounds the rest of the way and outrebounded the Spiders by 10, 42-32. The Niners also used a plethora of high-percentage shots to oust Richmond. At halftime, the Niners had a 22-14 advantage in points in the paint and by the end of the game had built that advantage to 38-24.
“We do rebound the ball pretty well and I think teams come out of the gate thinking ‘we have to stop them from rebounding’,” Aston said of the rebounding effort. “I think though as the game goes along, they forget a little bit and they probably don’t sustain that pressure. We do typically get a little bit stronger on the boards in the second half just because we keep kind of doing what we’re doing.”
Shells had 15 points to lead Richmond, who after starting off 3-0 in Atlantic 10 play have dropped two straight. Katie Holzer added six points for the Spiders and Abby Oliver connected on all six of her free throws to add six points.
For the game, Charlotte shot 43.4 percent from the field and 50 percent from behind the arc. Richmond on the other hand shot just 30.9 percent from the field and 21.4 percent from downtown. The only statistical advantage the Spiders held on the night was free throw percentage (75 percent to 55 percent), and bench points (14 to 4).
The win moves Charlotte to 5-1 in conference play on the season and extended the Niners’ winning streak to a season-high five games. The Niners return to the hardwood Saturday night for a primetime matchup with Saint Louis at Halton Arena.
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