Huntingdon women’s basketball wins home opener

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Huntingdon women's basketball head coach Buzz Phillips was glad to see his Lady Hawks win their first home game of the season.

But Phillips wasn't happy with Huntingdon's execution in Tuesday's 78-64 victory over Judson College at Roland Arena.

"I'm pleased with the win but I'm disappointed with the way we played," Phillips said. "Don't get me wrong, a win is a win and I wouldn't trade it. But considering the way we played in our first two games, our play tonight should have been a lot better. We should have put this game away four or five times, but we didn't. We've got a lot of things to improve on."

The Lady Hawks (2-1) controlled the game from the start but struggled to pull away from Judson (2-6). Judson only led once in the game, but remained within five points of Huntingdon until late in the first half. The Lady Hawks built a 22-point lead early in the second half and led by double digits the remainder of the game.

"We started off slow, and I still couldn't tell you why," said junior Morgan Crawford, who finished with 20 points, six rebounds, five assists, two steals and a block. "It was like we finally realized this team wasn't going to give up, so we had to put forth more effort and get the win.

"We won tonight, but we know we're not going to win many games if we keep playing like that. We have to step up our intensity and play better."

In particular, the Lady Hawks were disappointed in their 2-of-23 shooting from 3-point range, shooting less than 34 percent from the field and losing the battle inside. Judson finished with 57 rebounds to Huntingdon's 49.

"Shooting eight percent from 3-point range, that's probably the lowest 3-point percentage I've seen in all my years of coaching," Phillips said. "We've got to improve there and we've got to improve under the basket. We're going to go back to practice and work on getting better."

Phillips said he did see some good things on defense.

"Defensively, we played well in spots," Phillips said. "We had 18 steals and we scored 27 points off of turnovers. Converting those turnovers into baskets was the key to the game."

Crawford agreed about the importance of converting turnovers into points.

"Our shots weren't falling. When offense isn't working, you have to turn to defense," Crawford said. "That helped us put the game away."

Behind Crawford, freshman Chelsea Graham added 10 points and four rebounds. Senior LaTerial Williams followed with nine points and a team-high five steals. Sekal Ousley pulled down nine rebounds, scored seven points and made four steals. Raven Prater grabbed seven rebounds and Whitney Toole added six rebounds.

Joycelyn Seidule led Judson with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Kristian Lyons added 13 points and 10 rebounds and Avian Middleton finished with 11 points.

Huntingdon returns to action on Dec. 10 at Hiwassee. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m.