Huntingdon women win GSAC opener

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Huntingdon women's basketball coach Buzz Phillips wasn't pleased with the way his team started Wednesday night.

Phillips saw too much complacency during the early minutes of the Lady Hawks' Great South Athletic Conference opener against Wesleyan College. While the end result was a 64-31 Huntingdon win, Phillips hopes his team has gotten the message about being ready to play.

"I was not at all satisfied with the way we came out to start the game," Phillips said. "We came out like we were just here, and going through the motions. We didn't have the right mentality and we weren't ready to get after them.

"We've done that two or three times this season and that concerns me. As we're getting into conference play, we can't do that. There are several teams in the conference, that if you don't come out ready to play, you're in trouble. From now on, when the ball goes up, we've got to be ready to play."

Huntingdon (5-4, 1-0 GSAC) scored just six points in the first five minutes of the game before Phillips made a mass substitution. During the next few minutes, Huntingdon blew the game open with an 18-6 run. Four Chelsea Graham 3-pointers helped spark the run.

By halftime, the Lady Hawks led 32-16. In the second half, Huntingdon emptied the bench and closed out the win.

"I was glad we were able to play 20 players tonight," Phillips said. "That's not a luxury you get very often. All in all, we shot the ball well and we did some good things. Two of our freshmen in particular (Graham and Patricia Pickens) picked us up in the first half.

"Chelsea (with her 3-pointers) and Patricia (with her rebounding and the way she ran the floor) both made some things happen for us."

Graham finished with a game-high 17 points and was 5-for-11 from 3-point range. She scored 14 points during the initial first-half run. Pickens finished with 10 points. Senior Whitney Toole had a team-high 10 rebounds.

Lindsay Haggerty led Wesleyan (0-5, 0-4) with 15 points.

The Lady Hawks return to action on Thursday at Roland Arena against Pensacola Christian at 6 p.m. Huntingdon hosts Salem College on Saturday at 2 p.m. in a GSAC game.