- The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team came away with a 54-41 win over Georgetown Saturday night on Day Two of the Challenge in Music City at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
The Mocs are 4-3 overall and the Hoyas drop to 2-3 on the year. After falling in three straight games to start the season, Chattanooga has won its fourth straight game.
“They are very physical and very athletics,” Chattanooga head coach Jim Foster said. “I thought we did a great job of defending them.
We had some bad turnovers, unforced turnovers that we have to eliminate.”
Chattanooga made nine from beyond the 3-point line for the second straight night and third time this season and was 20-of-42 from the field. Senior Keiana Gilbert was 7-of-11 from the field with a game-high 17 points. She and Sophomore Arianne Whitaker each had a team-high seven rebounds.
Sophomore Lakelyn Bouldin was 4-of-6 from the 3-point line with 14 points and senior Aryanna Gilbert was 3-of-6 from long range with 13 points. Junior Ashlyn Wert matched her career-high with three blocked shots.
“She blocked some shots,” Foster said. “There were some shots she should have attempted to block because they were undersized players.”
The game started with the Mocs and Hoyas getting into a pair of ties before Keiana Gilbert and Bouldin combined for a pair of 3’s to make it 10-4 with 6:44 to play in the first quarter. The Mocs’ largest lead of the first half was eight points, 25-17 just before the half.
In the third quarter, the Mocs went on a 16-3 run for its largest lead of the game, 41-24 with 3:05 remaining in the quarter. Georgetown cut the lead to 12 at the end of the quarter but would get no closer the rest of the way.
“I thought our defense was solid,” Foster said. “They come flying from a lot of different places for the offensive rebounds, but they weren’t putting them back in. They did it sometimes in flurries which makes the numbers seem worse than they really are.”
Georgetown edged the Mocs on the board 34-31 and had 11 second chance points off 17 offensive rebounds. UTC dished out 14 assists and had four blocked shots. The Hoyas outscored the Mocs 24-14 in the paint and 8-6 off turnovers.
Chattanooga will wrap up play Sunday afternoon against Auburn in the final game of the Challenge. Northwestern held off a surging Auburn offense to get a 49-48 win Saturday. The Tigers are 3-2.
Larry Ward will have the call on 96.1 Real FM. Streaming audio and live stats will be available at GoMocs.com on the women’s basketball schedule page.