LAKELAND, Fla. – Southeastern women's basketball snapped St. Thomas' five-game Sun Conference win streak this afternoon with a 74-56 victory. With the win, the Fire move to 18-4 overall and 9-2 in the league.
St. Thomas scored the first four points and controlled the first quarter. They only relinquished the lead twice and took the first quarter by two, 18-16.
The Bobcats' largest lead was six, up 22-16, at the 8:40 mark of the second quarter.
Carlie Newman scored four of the next six points to knot it at 22 with 5:34 left in the half. The scored evened out twice more, at 25 and 27, before the Fire took over for good, 28-27 with 2:28 on the clock. Eight unanswered points made it 35-27 at half.
A 10-2 Fire run with four minutes to play in the third gave them their largest lead of the game, up 58-40 at the buzzer. Five of those points were courtesy of
Kristen Scholl who finished with seven on the afternoon.
The Bobcats matched the Fire in the fourth as each team scored 16 apiece, but the Fire's hot third quarter deemed their efforts too little too late.
"We played some stellar defense," said Interim Head Coach
Leann Dahlstein. "We got all the stops that we needed and that we had practiced all week. Our rebounding helped us out a lot too because we didn't allow them as many offensive rebounds as they were capable of."
Christin Strawbridge led the Fire with 19 points and 12 boards, good for her 12th double-double of the season. She was backed by
Bailey Hooker who had 16 points, and shot with 78% accuracy from the field. Newman and
Alyssa Ramos were also in double figures with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
As a whole the Fire were 52% from the field, 36% from long range and 83% from the line. They outrebounded the Bobcats 44-19.
The Fire are back in action on Wednesday as they travel to Ave Maria for a 6 p.m. tipoff.
