Lee University’s women’s basketball team showed why they are ranked number two in the nation with their win over Berry College on Thursday, Jan. 17. With matching records of 7-0 in the Southern States Athletic Conference, this matchup was supposed to be a thriller. The Lady Flames used hot shooting and dazzling defense to easily win against an admirable Berry team.

The wake of victory left four Lady Flame players in double scoring figures. Equally impressive was the six point limit the Flames managed to put on conference leading scorer Mickey Duncan during the first half of the contest. This hard work gave the Lady Flames a commanding first half lead.

“Berry is a good team, and we never thought that we would be up 27 at the half, but we played very well,” said Coach Mark Rowe.

Lee did an incredible job trapping the Berry guard during full-court pressure and forcing the Lady Vikings into 26 turnovers on the floor; many of which came in the first half. Side defense on Duncan also helped foil Berry’s offensive strikes. Berry’s offense would do better in the second half.

“Against Berry we wanted to establish our defensive pressure early and try to keep the ball away from Berry’s post players. We did an excellent job both in the full and half court doing that,” said Rowe.
Duncan doubled her first half point total in the second half with a 12 point splurge that left her final tally at 18 points. Though the Lady Vikings improved their shooting from the floor to 39 percent in the second half, they failed to cash in on any three-pointers, trying 12.

Not only was the Lady Flame defense on fire, but the offensive effort was of equal temperature. Jessica Still led the pack of high-scoring Flames with 22 points, followed closely by freshman Brook McKinnon with 21 points. Lee shot 58 percent from the field in the first half, and ended the game just above their season average of 47 percent.

Fallon Lee came in next with 13 points, while Katie Nelson posted her sixth double-double of the season by scoring 12 points and snatching 10 rebounds. Jan Dodson also contributed with six rebounds and six points.
The Lady Vikings’ Briana Caldwell scored 13 points to follow Duncan, and Kayla Carlisle scored 10 points off of the bench. Kendall David followed with eight points. Duncan led the rebounding effort for Berry with eight, but the team was unable to out-rebound the Flames who held a 42-30 advantage at the buzzer.